This was a spur-of-the-moment idea I had, and it turned out very delicious. I toasted croissant halves (which you may not need to do if they’re fresh and crispy still), let them cool a bit, and then topped them with pastry cream lightened with whipped cream, fresh raspberries, and powdered sugar. I’m sure other fresh berries could be used as well, but I love the tartness of raspberries in this.

Incidentally, pastry cream is a nice thing to have on hand as well as a good way to use up extra whole milk. I normally don’t drink whole milk but I do use it in recipes sometimes. When I have enough of it left over, I usually make pastry cream and freeze it. The recipe I use is from the Baker’s Dozen Cookbook. Allrecipes also has a recipe, but it has twice the milk, twice the egg yolks, and butter. Other than that it’s the same, except for using a real vanilla bean rather than extract. Personally I like a perfectly smooth pastry cream, so I prefer the extract.

This is another use of the Danish dough that I used to make the Danish Twists recently. The recipe is in the good but out-of-print book “The Best Bread Ever“. I made the variation with raspberry jam and cream cheese. Personally I think the cream cheese isn’t really needed. I’d add more raspberry jam instead if I make it again. As with the Danish Twists, the dough turned out perfectly flaky and crisp. It tastes best the first day, but careful toasting in a toaster oven (speaking from experience, flaky dough like this can burn pretty quickly) makes it almost like just baked.

I’ve been wondering what other fillings might taste good. Apple, cherry, and lemon – basically anything you’d put in a pie – would probably all be excellent fillings. It would be a nice alternative to pies too, as the crust to filling ratio is much higher. And that’s exactly what you want when you have such a yummy crust!