I buy croissants with the confidence of someone who will definitely eat six croissants. Then day three arrives; they’ve gone from flaky to slightly upholstered, and I have to make a decision.
The decision is always dessert. Croissants are already laminated butter and sugar in structural form, which means they do most of the work before you’ve turned the oven on.
Split one, fill it, bake it, and you get something that tastes like it took real effort, when the effort was largely done for you by a bakery at 5 a.m.
PIN FOR LATER 📌
Croissants earn their keep at lunch too, and these croissant sandwich ideas are where mine usually end up.
So here are 10 croissant dessert recipes that make the case for buying too many on purpose.
There’s a bread pudding for feeding people, a few stuffed and baked ideas that take about fifteen minutes, and a couple that are genuinely impressive enough to serve at the end of a dinner party.
Day-old croissants work better than fresh for most of them, which is the best kind of recipe there is.
1. Nutella Croissant Bread Pudding
Croissants split, filled with Nutella, sandwiched back together, then chopped and soaked in a custard made with three eggs, six yolks, cream, and cinnamon. Stale croissants are better here than fresh, since dry pastry drinks up the custard instead of resisting it. An hour and a half from start to finish, it serves eight, and the edges go crisp and buttery while the middle stays soft.
2. Honey Butter Croissants
Croissants split in half, brushed with a glaze of melted butter, honey and light brown sugar, then baked until the edges caramelize and go glossy. It’s a shortcut version of Japanese honey toast, and the split is the important bit, because it lets the glaze soak into the layers rather than sitting on top. Four pantry ingredients, twenty minutes, and the result sits somewhere near a kouign-amann for a fraction of the work.
3. Easy Pistachio Croissants
Day-old croissants split, brushed with simple syrup, stuffed with a homemade pistachio cream, topped with more filling and chopped pistachios, then baked until golden. Thirty minutes total using shop-bought croissants, and the syrup is the clever part, since it rehydrates stale pastry so the middle goes gooey while the outside crisps. Dip them halfway in melted chocolate and you’ve got the Dubai chocolate version everyone’s posting.
4. Raspberry Croissant Bread Pudding
Cubed day-old croissants soaked in a custard of milk, cream, eggs and lemon zest, layered with raspberry jam and baked until the top caramelizes. The lemon zest is the smart touch, cutting the richness so it doesn’t feel heavy. An hour total, serves six, and it can be assembled the night before and baked straight from the fridge.
5. Apple Pie Almond Croissants
Day-old croissants brushed with simple syrup, piped with almond frangipane, stuffed with cinnamon apples cooked down into a jammy filling, then topped with more frangipane and sliced almonds and baked until crisp. It’s the bakery almond croissant with apple pie built into the middle. The double bake is what makes the outside shatter, which is why slightly dried-out croissants work better than fresh ones.
6. Chocolate Almond Croissant Rolls
Store-bought croissants split, brushed with sugar syrup, filled with an almond frangipane and chopped chocolate, closed up, topped with more filling and sliced almonds, then baked 12 to 15 minutes until crisp. The author’s steer is worth passing on: go light on the chocolate so the almond stays the lead flavor rather than getting buried. It’s a copycat of the almond croissant from Arsicault in San Francisco, and her husband apparently preferred this version.
7. Strawberry Mascarpone Crème Croissants
Mascarpone and cream cheese whipped with heavy cream and vanilla until light, spooned into a split croissant over a spoonful of strawberry jam, topped with fresh strawberries and powdered sugar. Twenty minutes, no oven, no stovetop. The mascarpone keeps it from tasting like sweetened whipped cream, which is what separates this from an assembly job.
8. Tiramisu Croissants
A croissant split and dabbed with room-temperature espresso, piped full of whipped mascarpone cream, then finished with cocoa powder and grated dark chocolate. Fifteen minutes, no oven. The filling keeps in the fridge for three days, so you can whip it ahead and assemble when people arrive.
9. Croissant Ice Cream Sandwiches
A croissant split, filled with scoops of ice cream, and topped with a lid that’s been dipped in a hard candy shell so it cracks when you bite it. The shell is a boiled sugar syrup rather than melted chocolate, which is why it sets glassy instead of soft. Strawberries on the side, and the author reckons strawberry cheesecake ice cream would beat the chocolate and vanilla she used.
10. Blueberry Cream Cheese Croissant Casserole
Torn croissants layered with cubes of cream cheese and fresh blueberries, soaked in custard and baked, then finished with a warm blueberry sauce poured over the top. The cream cheese melts into pockets rather than disappearing, which is what stops it tasting like a plain fruit bread pudding. Assembles the night before and bakes in the morning, and the sauce is the part people comment on.