Raspberry and almond is one of my favourite combinations. Every dessert I’ve had that uses these two ingredients is always a 10/10. So I wanted to make some raspberry and almond croissants.
Almond croissants on their own are already amazing. But I felt like adding raspberries to them will elevate them a little.
Turns out I was right. I LOVE THESE CROISSANTS. The flavour was so good, I don’t think I’m ever going back to regular almond croissants.
Video Tutorial
Breakdown of the process
Making these raspberry and almond croissants is easy, but there are a few different parts to it.
The first thing you want to do is make a raspberry sauce. I don’t know exactly what to call it, it could be called a raspberry puree, or a jam, or a compote.
I DON’T KNOW, I truly don’t know what I made. So I’m just calling it a raspberry sauce.
Anyway I digress, you want to make this first so that it can cool and thicken up in the fridge.
The next step is to make a simple syrup. For this, you just need to boil some sugar and water together, then let this cool down for a bit at room temperature.
After this you can make the almond filling and then put the croissants together!
The raspberry sauce
Like I said, this is the first thing we are going to make. To make it, all you need to do is heat some raspberries, sugar, water and corn flour together.
I just had a few tips:
Adjust the amount of sugar
In the recipe I’ve wrote to use 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar.
This amount of sugar just depends on the the sweetness of your raspberries. If you have really sour ones, you might want to add more sugar. Or if they’re already super sweet, you might not want to add as much sugar.
So just adjust it to taste.
Sieve the mixture
Ok this is optional, but there will be a lot of seeds in the mixture.
Personally for me, I feel like the taste of seeds is not nice, especially in croissants. A bunch of seeds in croissants seems a little weird.
So I sieved the mixture to get the seeds out. If you don’t mind them, you can skip this step.
Let the mixture cool completely
Before adding this to your croissants, you want to leave it to cool completely in the fridge.
As it cools, the sauce will thicken.
You don’t want to add it to the croissants whiles it is still on the thinner side, because then as the croissants bake, the sauce will just run out!
Can I just buy raspberry jam and use this instead?
Yes absolutely, you don’t have to make it. It will save time if you use store bought jam.
But I do recommend using one that isn’t very sweet, just because the almond filling and the syrup is already adding sweetness. You don’t want your croissants to end up overly sweet.
Ingredients for the almond filling
Here are the ingredients you are going to need to make the almond filling:
- Unsalted butter – salted butter works too, but I like to use unsalted so that I can control the amount of salt in the recipe. If you’re using salted butter though, don’t add any extra salt.
- Icing sugar – I like to use icing sugar instead of granulated or caster sugar. It just gives a much smoother filling.
- Vanilla extract – for flavour
- 1 egg
- Ground almonds – also known as almond meal.
- Corn flour – also known as corn starch. This is going to help the filling stay thick as it bakes.
- Salt – to enhance the flavours. Don’t use this if you’re using salted butter.
- Milk – just too loosen up the filling a little.
A few tips
Use stale croissants
It’s best to use stale croissants for these. And by that I mean, they don’t have to be stale stale, just don’t use super fresh ones. Croissants that are a day or 2 old are best.
The reason for this is because stale croissants do a way better job at soaking the syrup and the filling. So you’ll end up with croissants that are slightly gooey in the centre but crispy on the outside.
Don’t add too much simple syrup
The first time I made almond croissants, I thought I was supposed to soak the croissants with the syrup….I added a lot to them.
Don’t do this.
You only want to brush them slightly with the syrup.
Adding too much will make them extremely sweet!
Assembling the croissants
I took step by step pictures to show how to assemble the croissants. I don’t know if I’ve done a very good job at explaining how to do it in the recipe card below, so I felt like pictures might help.
Here’s how to assemble the croissants:
1) Get a croissant and cut it in half, horizontally.
2) Brush the cut side of each half with some simple syrup.
3) Pipe or spread some almond filling onto the bottom half of the croissant.
4) Pipe a line, or spoon on some of the raspberry sauce into the centre, on top of the almond filling.
5) Add the top half back on, then add some of the almond filling on top of this.
6) Press some almond flakes into this. Then just repeat all this with the rest of the croissants.
The freeze dried raspberry powder
The last thing I did was dust the top of the baked croissants with some freeze dried raspberry powder.
I actually used strawberry powder because I ran out of raspberry, but let’s pretend it was raspberry.
This just adds some colour, I think it looked nice. It didn’t add much to the taste, it was just for aesthetic purposes.
You could just use icing sugar if you wanted too, or you could just eat them the way they are. It’s up to you!
Here are some other croissant recipes you might also want to try:
Raspberry and Almond Croissants
Ingredients
6 croissants, stale ones are best to use
- For the raspberry sauce:
250g raspberries
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons granulated (you can adjust this depending on the sweetness of your raspberries)
2 tablespoons corn flour mixed with 2 tablespoons water
- For the simple syrup:
80g granulated sugar
80ml water
- For the almond filling:
150g unsalted butter, softened
150g icing sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
300g ground almonds
2 teaspoons corn flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
20ml milk
- Extras:
Some almond flakes, optional
Some freeze dried raspberry powder to dust on top, also optional
Directions
- Making the raspberry sauce:
- Add your raspberries, water and sugar into a pot and place this over medium heat. Whiles these are heating, use a spoon or spatula to mash the raspberries. Keep heating until most of the raspberries are mashed and you have a mostly smooth mixture.
- Add the corn flour/water mixture into this and mix. Then heat until the mixture thickens. Take this off the heat.
- Push the mixture through a sieve to get out the seeds. Then leave this in the fridge to cool completely.
- Making the simple syrup:
- Add the sugar and water into a pot and place this onto medium heat. Let this come to a boil.
- Once it comes to a boil, lower the heat and let this simmer for 2 minutes. Then take it off the heat and leave aside to cool at room temperature.
- Making the almond filling:
- In a large bowl, add the butter, icing sugar and vanilla. Beat these together for 5 minutes.
- Add the egg into this and whisk this in. Then add the ground almond, corn flour, salt and milk. Mix until you get a smooth mixture. You want a thick but spreadable/pipeable mixture, if it's too thick, add a little more milk.
- Putting the croissants together:
- At this point, pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f.
- Get your croissants and cut them in half, horizontally.
- Brush a little bit of the syrup onto the cut sides of the croissants. Then pipe or spread the almond filling onto the bottom half of the croissants. Pipe a line of the raspberry sauce on top of the almond filling, then add on the top half of the croissant.
- Spread a little bit of the filling on top, then press the almond flakes onto this.
- Place all your croissants onto a baking paper lined tray, then bake them for around 20 minutes or until golden and crispy on top.
- Once baked, you could either dust some freeze dried raspberry powder on top of them, or icing sugar works too. But after that, enjoy!
