Rhubarb and Custard Cruffins

If I’m being honest, cruffins to me sounds more like a dodgy disease than a bake, but thankfully it’s not. It’s actually a delish fusion of a flaky croissant and a muffin, resulting in a kinda cruffin lovechild if you will. The croissant dough is shaped and then baked in a muffin tin, and then these pastries are traditionally filled with all sorts of custards, creams and jams.

Whilst rhubarb and custard are a great classic combo, custard will go with pretty much anything so don’t feel as though you have to go with this particular pairing. My Dad really hates rhubarb and he won’t go near the stuff, so if you’re likewise averted to rhubarb you can use any other fruit jam you like.  I’d recommend going for something with a bit of bite, like a lemon curd or a raspberry jam rather than a strawberry or cherry jam, as otherwise things can get a bit sweet. Likewise, if you don’t like custard, whipped cream works really well to! If you do use cream though make sure you chill them in the fridge when not needed, and eat them within 2-3 days.

Recipe

Makes 8

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• Butter for greasing
• 350g Ready-to-roll Croissant pastry (see mince pie croissants recipe if you’d like to make your own dough!)
• 175ml Whole milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste
• 2 Egg yolks
• 30g Caster sugar
• 25ml Double cream
• 13g Custard powder
• 2 tbsp Rhubarb jam
• Icing sugar to dust

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Grease 6 hole in a 12-hole muffin tin with butter.
2. Unroll the croissant dough on a worktop and cut the dough into three, equally sized rectangles. Then cut each of these strips diagonally to make two right-angled triangles from each rectangle.
3. Lay them so the long side is facing you. Then roll up the triangle along the long side to make a tight coil with a flat base. Then take a knife and cut the roll in half from the top to about half way down the roll. Then stand the dough up on it’s flat edge and twist the two tails round eachother, pressing them into the dough at the end to join it together. Then put the cruffin into a hole in the greased muffin tin. (This process can be seen in the photo at the top of the post).
4. Break the egg into a bowl and beat with a fork. Then brush the pastry with the beaten egg to glaze. Bake in the oven for 15-17 minutes until crisp and golden. Then leave them to cool on a wire rack until needed.
5. Now make the custard filling. Put the milk and vanilla into a pan and bring to the boil.
6. Meanwhile put the egg yolks, sugar, cream, and custard powder into a bowl and whisk together to make a smooth paste. Pour the hot milk over the egg mixture, whisking constantly until combined. Then put the mix back into the pan and pop back on the heat, still whisking constantly. Continue to whisk until the mixture thickens. Then pour the custard into a bowl and leave to cool.
7. When the cruffins and custard have cooled down you’re ready to start filling! Spoon the jam and custard into a two separate piping bags with small round nozzles. Then pipe a little of the jam into the middle of each cruffin, followed by some of the custard.
8. Dust with icing sugar and serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x