September 20, 2024 12:00 pm
• Last Updated: September 20, 2024 9:27 am

Croissant crust, filled with overnight cheesecake filling and then baked. Topped with golden kiwi slices and fresh blueberries with an apricot glaze.

Hollowed out croissant crust baked with cheesecake filling, ready for fresh fruit and a glaze.

Pre-baked croissant boats used as bread bowls. Left to right: Chicken Cacciatore, Mac & Cheese and Chunky Chili.

As I’ve written previously, I went all-in on the crookie for my farmers market side gig. The original French crookie utilized day-old croissants that were slightly staled and stuffed with chocolate chip cookie dough and then rebaked.

In doing the testing for that treat, I was poking around at the local stores, trying to find the best deal on croissants. Most of the croissant offerings at supermarkets were too small to warrant stuffing. Costco, of course, has the largest, freshest ones. They bake them daily and pack a dozen of these golden footballs into a plastic clamshell the size of a small kayak. For $5.99. Sometimes, I wish Costco didn’t make it so easy.

After I attempted the crookie with the store-bought croissants, I realized that I didn’t like the final product. It was way too messy looking. So I switched over to using puff pastry to make crookie rolls for the farmers market. And then I completely forgot about the half-dozen croissants that I was drying out in the kitchen annex. For five days.

When I finally rediscovered the croissants, they were very, very hard. On a whim, I tried slicing into one. It sliced perfectly — very clean cuts. There’s a reason croissant sandwiches look like hell; they’re so soft and squishy that any cutting distorts the shape and structure. Not so with staled croissants. Once that outer crust dries out, you can handle them easily without turning them into buttery blobs.

Using a serrated bread knife, I cut the tops off the half-dozen croissants and started gently pulling out some of the interior structure to make a canoe shaped shell. I left about a quarter inch of croissant along the bottom and the sides of the interior, taking care to not tear holes (see photos). A leaky croissant canoe would be a bad thing.

I figured that I wanted to test these first with a dessert item, and I remembered the recipe for overnight cheesecake that I had in my database. It fit the bill quite nicely; it bakes at 200°F, so the croissant wouldn’t overbrown or burn. (Browning, aka the Maillard reaction, starts around 280°F, so the croissants actually won’t get any more browning at all.)

I filled each of the canoes with about 1/3 cup of cheesecake filling and baked them at 200°F for two hours. When they were done baking, I pulled them out, let ’em cool and then placed slices of golden kiwi and a few blueberries on top of the cheesecake filling and then glazed the top with warmed apricot jam.

The result was way better than I expected. Letting the croissants go stale got rid of most of the water content, which means that what was left behind is an airy, crisp sponge. The air pockets encapsulated by the paper thin walls of the dough act as insulation. Which, in the finished product, means that even the underside remained sturdy and flaky. Quelle surprise! That contrast in textures: crispy, flaky shell vs. creamy sweet cheese is a righteous experience. Nothing stale about it.

Matter of fact, it worked so well, I’m not going to tell people I let the croissants “go stale.” I’m going to call it “passive dehydration.”

Passive croissant dehydration

Open a package store bought, 7“ croissants. Let them air dry over the course of 2-3 days in a place with good air circulation, like the top of a refrigerator. When the croissant is firm to the touch, they are ready to use.

Croissant canoe construction

Place a croissant into a rimmed half sheet pan at the rim. Lay a serrated bread knife horizontally on the edge and gently cut the top half off, using the rim as a guide for even cutting. Put the top pieces of the croissant aside for snacking or freezing for later use as a crumb topping for casseroles. Using your fingers, pinch out pieces of the center of the croissant to hollow it out to about 1/4 inch from the sides and the bottom. Use caution not to make any holes in the sides or bottom.

Cheesecake-filled croissant

Make the overnight cheesecake filling from this link here at Washington Post (Google keywords: Krystal + overnight + cheesecake). I made a half batch to fill about 8 croissants to just below the rim of the crust. Bake on a baking sheet at 200°F for two hours until filling is completely set. The filling should shrink just enough for you to layer in some fresh fruit and your favorite glaze and then refrigerate until serving.

I brought one of these tasty little suckers over to my neighbor Dawn, and the next morning, her husband José came over with their review on an index card. The highlights were “overall good reviews from 5 1/2 tasters” … I think the half person was the 8-year-old who “loved the yummy glaze” … “croissant held up nicely to the filling” … and most importantly, “I would buy this at a bakery.”

Croissant bread bowl

I also toasted the croissant bowls in the oven and filled them with mixtures of chicken cacciatore, mac and cheese and one with chunky chili with beans (see photo). This will also work well with cold sandwich fillings like tuna salad, chicken salad and egg salad.

Twisted Halloween idea

I stopped into BJ’s Wholesale Club to check out their croissants and ran smack into the wall of Halloween candy. At the end of the wall, I saw a display of Snickers fun-size bars packaged in those rectangular feed buckets (see photo). They used to sell these kinds of buckets filled with chicken feed at Agway. Instantaneously, I got this mental image of scattering fistfuls of Snickers across my lawn on Halloween night; flocks of costumed urchins scampering around my front yard in the dark, trying to collect as many Snickers as they can grab. The mothers are going to HATE this idea, but the kids will love it. Guess I’m going to have to buy myself some overalls and a straw hat.

Rich Swanson is a local cook who has had numerous wins in nationally sponsored recipe contests. He is also the layout specialist here at The Day.

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Rich Swanson can be reached at [email protected].