Babes Bake a Hybrid

 The Bread Baking Babes have been baking bread for quite a while now and since we don't want to repeat ourselves, it has become almost a bigger challenge to find an interesting new bread to bake as it is to bake it. Aparna did a wonderful job!

This month our lovely Kitchen of the Month is Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and she has challenged us to bake Cruffins. This is a hybrid bread...a cross between a croissant and a muffin. The bread is a yeast bread, just like a croissant and it has thin layers and butter between them like a croissant, but it's shaped to bake in a muffin tin and so the resulting bread looks like ... a cruffin!

The recipe we were given was for a plain cruffin, only lightly sweetened. That meant that the person eating it could add sugar on top or some jam or just enjoy it's pure flavor which is buttery. I was making mine to share. One of the persons I shared with just loves cinnamon rolls, so I added an extra two tablespoons of sugar to the dough and some cinnamon sugar to mine before I started rolling up the dough. Because I like walnuts with my cinnamon rolls, I also sprinkled some chopped walnuts over the cinnamon sugar. That was a winning combo! You could also try maple sugar instead of cinnamon sugar, you could use granulated sugar worked together with a citrus peel like lemon or orange...so many ways to play with this delightful bread!

The dough for this treat is a rich dough, using both butter and milk, although there are no eggs, so allow enough time for it to rise. Mine rose fairly slowly. Allow time for rolling out the dough, too, because this is another one where the dough needs to be really thin so that you get those lovely layers. The filled rolls rose slowly, too, which helps to explain, a bit, why I burned mine on top. It was late in the evening when I baked them and I neglected to move my oven rack to a lower setting, so they burned on top

which is not that surprising with a sweet dough like this. The rest of the cruffin was just fine, so I sliced off the burnt top and sprinkled on some powdered sugar and all was well.

These are delicious and can also be fun to eat if you like to sort of peel away the layers and eat them one at a time. I have to admit that I enjoyed just biting in and getting the full cinnamon experience.

Do consider being a Buddy. Just bake the recipe and send Aparna an email by July 29th with your URL and a short description of your bake, plus a photo. She will send you a Buddy Badge.

Also, be sure to visit the blogs of fellow Bread Baking Babes to see what they have done with this recipe!

This recipe makes 8 Cruffins

INGREDIENTS : 

For the Dough :

1/4 cup sugar (more for sweeter cruffin) (I used 2 tablespoons proofing the yeast plus 1/4 cup with the flour)
1 1/4 tsp dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
50 gm unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk

For Lamination :
120 to 150 gm unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-2 oz. cinnamon sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

To Decorate/ Serve :
Icing sugar/Cinnamon sugar/ Melted chocolate, etc

DIRECTIONS :

If proofing yeast, mix together 1 tsp of the sugar, yeast and lukewarm water. Keep aside for 5 to 10 minutes till frothy.  Otherwise just add the dry yeast directly to the flour with other ingredients and then add the water while kneading.

 In a large bowl or the bowl of kneading machine, mix together the proofed yeast, sugar, salt and chilled butter cut into small pieces. Add milk and knead into a soft and elastic dough that comes away from the side of the bowl. The dough should not be sticky. Add a little more milk or flour, as required to achieve this consistency of dough.

 Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to an oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat it well. Cover and let the dough rise till double in volume. This should take between an hour to two depending on ambient temperature.

 In the meanwhile prepare your baking pan and keep aside. Butter and very lightly flour the cavities of your muffin or popover tray.

 Dust your working surface lightly with flour and turn the dough out. Lightly knead to deflate the dough. Divide into four equal pieces. Roll out each piece to a 60x20cm sized piece. The dough sheet will be very thin. If you have a pasta machine you can use that as it is easier to roll out thin sheets with it. I cut the dough into two pieces (60cm x 40cm each) and cut into 4 pieces after buttering each.

 Spread about 30 to 38 gm butter (depending on whether you’re using 120 gm or 150 gm of butter) of soft butter over each rolled out piece of dough. Cut each piece into half, lengthwise, creating two thin strips.

Roll one thin strip into a tight roll. Place this at the edge of the second strip and continue rolling till you have one thick roll. This will give your cruffins more layers.

 Cut roll in half lengthwise. Roll each half, like a circle (cinnamon roll style)with the cut layers side showing the outside. Make sure to tuck both ends under so it doesn’t open up on baking. Place the roll in the prepared muffin or popover pan.

 Repeat with all the dough pieces. Cover the pan with a kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 45 minutes. The rolls should look puffy and have risen to almost the edge of the cavities.

Bake the cruffins at 190C (375F) for about 30 minutes or till golden brown and done. Turn them out onto a rack and let the cool. Dust with icing sugar or brush tops the with melted butter and dredge in cinnamon sugar. Serve warm with coffee or tea.