Make Crispy, Caramelized Slices With Stale Baked Goods
As a teenager, I was obsessed with Costco croissants. My mom bought them in huge plastic containers that my sisters and I devoured in a few days. It was my favorite bread. Today, I am often tempted by the same size butter croissants at the grocery store—their abundance attracts—but, having been in the family for a year and a half, I refrain from buying them out of slight fear that I will end up with a whole bunch of stale croissants.
But this fear was overcome. While I’m typing, I’m eating a bite of a crunchy, sweet, caramelized croissant and my MacBook is covered in crumbs. A brittle croissant costs crumbs.
Brittle croissants are not my invention. I found the recipe on Food52 , which in turn was inspired by the people at the Sea Wolf Bakery in Seattle. (They make brittle croissants from their yesterday’s croissants.) Making them is easy: cut a few croissants, dip them in a syrup made from the halves and sugar, and then bake them in a preheated 300-degree oven until crispy. The result is a layered confection that sits somewhere between a pastry and a cookie, and it’s amazing.
But it’s not just stale croissants that can benefit from brittle processing. I broke a stale glazed cinnamon roll from the grocery store and it was delicious too. A yeast donut (or any other absorbent dough) will also work. Even the recipe is a little funny: I ran out of white sugar, so I used brown. Guess what? Still delicious.
Crispy Brown Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- Stale pastries (although fresh work too)
- 1/2 cup half and half
- 3/4 cup brown sugar (or white sugar)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Set the oven to 300℉. Cut the cookies into 1/4-1/2 inch thick and set aside. Heat half and half over medium heat until steaming, then combine with sugar and salt and beat until dissolved.
Dip both sides of each piece of dough into the syrup, then gently knead the dough to squeeze out the excess. The dough should be completely wet with syrup, but not dripping. Place on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and bake for 45 minutes, turning the baking sheet halfway.
After 45 minutes, lightly pierce the pastry (be careful, the sugar is hot!). They should be firm with little recoil. Remove them from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. If they are not brittle after cooling, return them to the oven for another five minutes.