I think I’ve said it before, but 2020 is shaping up to be the year I clock in thousands of hours on YouTube. I’m watching EVERYTHING: cafe vlogs, Korean singing shows, street food, etc. It’s a lot, but it’s also given me a bit of inspiration these days.

Step in: croiffles aka croissant waffles. I think croiffles sort of became a thing after cronuts (croissant-donuts), but I never really saw them take off like the latter did. I saw a YouTube video of some Korean cafe making these, and they looked so delicious that I wanted to try them out. I’m not an expert baker by any means, so I took the semi-homemade route and got some crescent rolls from the store as a shortcut!

Since it’s Fall (even though the Bay Area is hot af lately), I wanted to try these out with the ultimate basic, Fall betches flavor: pumpkin spice. There is only one other pumpkin spice recipe on this blog (my Pumpkin Spice Madeleines), so this brings the grand total up to 2 ✌🏻 — I think this makes a solid addition!

Croissants covered in sugar, waiting to be cooked 😍

The beauty of this is that you just cover your croissants in sugar and cook them. You will smell the sugar caramelizing as the hot waffle iron cooks it, and it seriously smells amazing!

Note: You can slice this recipe up however many times you want, but you can also use the pumpkin spice and sugar mix for other things if you want to keep those measurements the same. I used mine for coffee most recently!

Pumpkin Spice Croiffles

Ingredients:

1 tube Crescent Rolls (or unbaked croissants)
3 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp pumpkin spice
Cooking spray
Optional: 1/3 cup whipping cream for topping

Instructions:

In a bowl, mix the sugar and pumpkin spice. Take 2 teaspoons of the mix and reserve in a separate bowl — this will be for your whipped cream (if you want to make it).
Pop open your tube of Crescent Rolls and start rolling them up into a croissant shape.
Doing 1-2 rolls at a time, place them in the bowl with the pumpkin spice and sugar, and use a spoon to coat the surface with the sugar blend. Get that sugar over every bit of the croissant so you can get some nice caramelization in your waffle maker!
Once your croissants are coated and ready, heat up your waffle iron. I use a Belgian Waffle iron so there are deeper grooves (meant for fluffier waffles), but really any kind should work!
Spritz some cooking spray on both sides of your griddle and place 2 croissants next to each other on top (the sides should be touching each other). Close the waffle iron and gently press down to seal it.
Cook your croiffle for about 6-7 minutes depending on your iron. The croiffle is ready once it’s crispy and brown on the outside from the sugar caramelizing. If it feels doughy when you poke it with a fork, give it a few more minutes to cook.
Sprinkle your excess pumpkin spice and sugar blend on top of the croiffles and then top with anything else you want. Keep reading for an optional pumpkin spice whipped cream!
Optional: While your croiffles are cooking, take the 2 teaspoons of your pumpkin spice and sugar blend you reserved at the beginning of this recipe and add it to a bowl with 1/3 cup of whipping cream. Whip until your whisk leaves tracks and soft peaks stay up when you lift the whisk up.

These croiffles are a nice sweet breakfast. If that’s not your thing, you could totally make savory croiffles by keeping them plain. Or roll up things in your croissant before cooking, like ham or bacon! Honestly, just typing this is giving me even more ideas of things to try with this recipe. Maybe I’ll throw some cream cheese in next time with this one??

Let me know if you try this, and, if you have other flavor ideas, let me know!