- Makes 6 cruffins – Ready in 24 hours (as long as you have a mature sourdough starter available) –
A sourdough sweet-bread muffin which has layers which look like those of a croissant. So croissant + muffin = cruffin. With a baked-in chocolatey filling. Yum. Plus much less hassle than handmade croissants.
Gather together for the cruffin dough…
25g melted butter (heated in the microwave for 20 seconds on HIGH).
60ml lukewarm milk (heated in the microwave for 20 - 30 seconds on HIGH).
25g white caster sugar / white granulated sugar.
75g of sourdough starter (really active and bubbly - see below for how to get it to this state).
150g strong white bread flour.
1/2 tsp salt (fine 'table' salt, not salt flakes/coarse grains).
plus...
1 cup of plain flour (yes, a lot of extra flour!) to dust the work surface / dough.
Gather together for the filling...
EITHER...
200g Nutella chocolate-spread equivalent (choose palm-oil-free if possible) - I usually use the Hazelnut & Chocolate spread from Gü or the Lindt Hazelnut Chocolate Spread, as both are palm-oil free and come in glass jars. They are quite 'grown-up flavoured spreads, which in my book is good as it means more for me if the kids wont eat them.
OR,
120g butter (softened in the microwave for 20 seconds or so).
15g cacao powder (sieved), available in bulk from forestwholefoods.co.uk.
20g white caster or white granulated sugar.
Get making…
1. FIRST THING IN THE MORNING OF THE DAY BEFORE you want the cruffins to be ready, remove the sourdough starter from the fridge (if that's where you keep your starter, I usually keep mine on the kitchen worktop and only put it in the fridge if I'm not baking with it for 3+ days). As you need 75g to bake the cruffins with, you'll need to discard more of the starter than usual, ensuring you have a 1/4 cup (60g) of starter left in the Pyrex bowl (I now use a Pyrex - aka toughened glass - bowl to store my sourdough starter, after having three regular glass jars crack, each incident was a near miss each time for my poor starter "Mary" - eek!) To that 60g of starter in the Pyrex bowl, add a 1/4 cup (60g) of lukewarm water - at this stage stir well to loosen the starter - then add a 1/4 cup (30g) of wholemeal flour. Stir well and wipe down the sides with a clean damp cloth, cover the jar with a clean, dry cotton cloth (secured with an elastic band) and put it to keep warm in the oven, WITH JUST THE OVEN LIGHT ON (the heat from the bulb will keep the oven slightly warm) for 3 to 6 HOURS - however long it takes for your particular starter to become very active and bubbly. If it is a COLD DAY then pre-warm your oven for 1 minute at 180 C ish - set a timer for 60 seconds or it will get too warm, before turning the heat OFF and just leaving the oven light ON. Set a timer to ring after 3 hours to remind you to check your starter and in the meantime put a note on the oven door so that no one unwittingly turns the heat on and frazzles your starter - eek!
2. Check your sourdough starter half way through the six hours, i.e. after 3 hours (set a timer to remind you to do this). If it looks bubbly and active - great, get on with the recipe steps. If it looks inactive or hungry (i.e. if a layer of watery 'hooch' liquid has formed within the starter or on the top) then stir in the hooch and do another cycle of 'discard all but 1/4 of a cup and feed with 1/4 cup warm water and 1/4 cup wholemeal flour'. If it is a COLD day, repeat the quick oven pre-warm (warm the empty oven for 1 minute at 180 C ish - set a timer for 60 seconds or it will get too warm, before turning the heat OFF and just leaving the oven light ON to keep the sourdough starter cosy.)
3. After the three or six hours, so in the EARLY AFTERNOON OF THE DAY BEFORE you want to bake, start to make the enriched dough. In a medium-large bowl (ideally the bowl of a stand-mixer-with-dough-hook-attachment if you don't want to knead by hand) mix the 25g of melted butter with the 60ml of lukewarm milk and the 25g of white caster / white granulated sugar.
4. If necessary, let the buttery-milky-sugary mixture cool for a minute or two until it is lukewarm and not hot (so you don't frazzle the yeast!), then add the 75g of happy, bubbly, active sourdough starter. Stir well to combine.
5. In a SEPARATE medium bowl, combine the 150g of white bread flour and the 1/2 tsp of salt. Mix well.
6. Tip the flour/salt mixture into the wet ingredients and mix well with a metal spoon, just until there are no floury patches.
7. Then using a stand-mixer-with-dough-hook-attachment, knead for 10 minutes - the dough will become beautifully elastic.
8. Cover the bowl with a clean damp tea towel (flat across the top of the bowl, not touching the dough) and put it in the oven with just the oven light on (this will keep the rising dough at a constantly warm enough temperature) for 4 HOURS. If it is a COLD DAY then pre-warm your EMPTY oven for 1 minute at 180 C ish - set a timer for 60 seconds or it will get too warm, before turning the heat OFF and just leaving the oven light ON. Again put a written note on the oven (so it isn't turned on fully by accident) and set a timer to ring to remind you when 4 hours have passed. During its time in the turned-off-but-light-on oven the dough should rise a bit, but DON'T WORRY if you can't see much of a difference, all will be well.
9. In the LATE AFTERNOON OF THE DAY BEFORE baking day, clear a large space - at least 60cm by 20cm - on your (clean) worksurface and scatter with 3 tbsp of plain flour.
10. Tip the floury-dough out onto the worksurface as you need to separate the dough into equal 1/3s. Put the empty bowl onto a set of digital scales, tare it to zero and weigh the full ball of dough. Work out what the total dough weight divided by 3 is (roughly 360g divided by 3 = roughly 120g). Once more tip the whole ball of floury dough onto the worksurface and use scissors to cut it into 1/3s, checking and adjusting using the scales to help you ensure each portion is even. Place the individual dough portions onto a dinner plate and set aside (no need to cover them as you actually want them to dry out a bit before rolling!)
11. Shape the first portion of dough into a small rectangle (circa 20cm x 10cm) using your hands to press it gently into shape - using your hands will let you feel any sticky bits and you can dust the dough portion with (yet more!) flour before using the rolling pin.
12. Use a large rolling pin to roll out the rectangle until it is approximately 60cm wide and 20cm high. It doesn't have to be a perfect rectangle as you will be rolling it up shortly anyway.
13 (a). EITHER use shop-bought chocolate spread...REMOVE THE METAL LID from the 200g jar of chocolate spread and microwave the jar for up to 1 minute or so to warm it, but don't make it too hot or you will harm the yeast in the dough!
13(b). OR make your own cacao spread... Microwave the 120g of butter for 20 seconds or so, until it is very soft. Sieve in the 15g of cacao powder and stir in the 20g of white sugar.
14. Give the filling (shop-bought or homemade) a good stir and then cover the first dough rectangle with 2 tbsp of the chocolate. Keep 1cm away from each of the long edges, but you can spread close to the edges on the short sides.
15. Roll up the dough by lifting a SHORT edge up and rolling it tightly (you may need to use a fish slice to help unstick it from the surface if you have rolled the dough onto a less-well-floured part of the worksurface). You will end up with a cigar-looking thing. Transfer it to a cutting board if you are concerned about your worktop and leave it there whilst you prepare the others.
16. Press out, roll out, cover with chocolate mixture and roll up the other 2 pieces of dough. Giving you 3 'cigars' in total.
17. Use large scissors to cut each 'cigar' completely in half lengthways, so you have two thin pieces per 'cigar and so 6 in total.
18. Lightly butter-grease a 6-hole muffin tray. It MUST be a muffin tray (i.e. quite deep) so that there is enough room for the layers in the dough to expand.
19. Coil each of the 6 long pieces of dough into a spiral, making sure that the cut side is facing outwards - to show off the layers.
20. Cover the muffin tray generously with foil, so there are no gaps. Stretch the foil loosely across the top of the tray, allowing for some 'growing room' to keep moisture in, to ensure the dough stays soft during proving. Neither a reusable beeswax wrap, nor a baking tray placed over the top should be used, as they do not seal in the moisture sufficiently.
21. Put the generously-foil-covered tray in the oven-with-just-the-oven-light-on (to keep a constantly warm temperature) for 4 HOURS - set a timer to remind you. The swirls will puff up slightly, but not much. Don't worry about this.
22. Then put the tray of uncooked dough swirls in the fridge overnight, still covered with the foil.
23. On BAKING DAY ITSELF take the COLD uncooked dough swirls out of the fridge an hour BEFORE you want to bake them. Allow the (STILL COVERED in foil) dough swirls to return to room temperature for 1 hour, in the switched-off oven with just the light on. If it is a COLD DAY then pre-warm your EMPTY oven for 1 minute at 180 C ish - set a timer for 60 seconds or it will get too warm, before turning the heat OFF and just leaving the oven light ON (the slight heat from the oven lightbulb will keep the dough warm). Even after this warming time, it is unlikely that the swirls will have risen much - have faith, the oven baking will work its magic!
24. After the hour has passed, REMOVE the foil (you can wash, save and re-use the same piece of foil) and place the muffin tray in a COLD OVEN (i.e. no need to pre-heat). This cold oven baking method seems unusual, but it works and it saves time and energy as there is no need for wasteful oven-preheating.
25. Set the oven to 200 C (180 C fan) or Gas 6 and bake the cruffins UNCOVERED for 25 minutes. (Part of this time will be taken up with the oven heating up, this is fine as it gives the dough time to rise before the slight crust develops).
26. After the 25 minutes, remove the baked cruffins from the oven and use a spoon to scoop them out of the tin and onto a wire rack to cool.
27. The cruffins are best eaten on the day they are baked, but do let them cool for at least 10 minutes before devouring (so you don't burn your mouth). You can sprinkle them with sieved icing sugar if you wish.
28. To store, keep the (cooled) cruffins in an airtight tin at room temperature and eat them up within 3 days. On day 2 and day 3 they can be re-freshed by heating in the microwave on HIGH for ONLY 10 seconds.
Inspired by the 'Sourdough Chocolate Cruffins' recipe on sourdoughandolives.com.