Cinnamon Sugar Cruffins

Cinnamon Sugar Cruffins are flaky and sweet croissant muffin hybrid. The best of both worlds. Best eaten with coffee and friends!

If you’ve had our French Toast Muffins and Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins, you know how absolutely delicious combining two popular Breakfast Recipes can be! It’s an easy and tasty way to give your breakfast a makeover! We’ve been a bit obsessed with croissants lately.

Sabrina’s Cinnamon Sugar Cruffins Recipe

Traditional croissants are a coffee shop staple, and I bet you’ve never been in a cafe that didn’t have at least one kind of muffin. But what happens when these two common pastries come together? Straight up buttery, flaky, sweet magic known as a Cruffin.

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About this Recipe

Over the years there have been many variations on the cruffin, but the basics are a croissant dough that is baked in a muffin tin. Once they are finished baking, you can fill them with custard, pastry creams, jams, or curds. I included a few ideas down below to try out.

Normally when you make cruffins, you have to make a croissant dough that takes quite a bit of work including kneading butter into the dough between proofing it several times. This recipe makes it simple for any home cook to make with puff pastry dough and feel like a fancy pastry chef.

Chef’s Note – Homemade Dough

If you want to make these completely from scratch, and have a little more time, feel free to substitute a homemade croissant dough for the puff pastry sheets. You want to get your pastry dough very thin when making this recipe, but not so thin it tears. A hack I’ve found helpful is using a pasta machine, if you have one. Running it through the noodle attachment on your mixer or a hand pasta machine are huge time savers!

How to fill

• Piping Bag: Channel your inner pastry chef by using this pro method. The tricky part can be gauging how much filling is going into the muffin but practice definitely helps!
• Knife: Using a paring knife, cut out a small hole in the center of your Cruffin and spoon filling until it is filled. This can be a bit messier but also there’s no piping bags to clean.
• Apple Corer: If you have this handy gadget, it can be easier to use than a knife and more uniform. You’ll get the same amount of filling in every muffin.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

Butter is the key to making these muffins light and fluffy and melt in your mouth. So it doesn’t tear your dough, make sure it is completely soft but not melted. Leave your butter out on the counter for about 2 hours or overnight to soften.

How to Store

• Serve: If you are not filling your Cruffins, you can keep them in a cool, dry place for up to 3 days.
• Store: Extend the freshness of your muffins by storing them in a sealed container in the fridge for about a week.
• Freeze: These can be frozen for up to 2 months in an airtight container. Cool completely before freezing so no moisture collects.

Variations

• Lemon Curd: Once your Cruffins are done baking, fill them with easy Lemon Curd. It’s ready in under 30 minutes so you can make it while you muffins are in the oven.
• Nutella: Soften some Nutella in the microwave and spread over the buttered pastry dough.
• Cream Cheese: Make these a savory brunch item by spreading softened cream cheese and skip the cinnamon sugar. Instead use garlic seasoning or a bit of Ranch Dressing Mix.
• Vanilla Cream: Use vanilla pudding to make a quick vanilla pastry cream to fill your muffins. Mix 1 package of vanilla pudding and 2 ½ cups of milk. Combine pudding mixture with our whipped cream and pipe into Cruffins.
• Jam: Fill baked croissant muffins with your favorite jam. I like a combination of raspberry jam with slivered almonds. To get almonds in every bite, sprinkle them on the dough on top of the butter before baking.

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Photos used in previous versions of the post.