Prosciutto Gruyère Croissants excerpted from 100 Morning Treats: With Muffins, Rolls, Biscuits, Sweet and Savory Breakfast Breads, and More. Text and photographs © 2023 by Sarah Kieffer.
One hundred morning treats to start your day with smiles: These baking projects will bring delight to your family breakfast, a Sunday brunch or bake sale, a morning at the office, or kids’ soccer practice. Whatever your preference alongside your morning cup of coffee or tea—sweet or savory, buttery or flaky, hot off the griddle or taken to go—you’ll find a recipe for it here, from coffee cakes to danishes, doughnuts, scones, quick breads, quiches, and muffins galore!
Filled with more than 120 inspiring photographs, including how-tos for doughs and shaping, and instructions for prepping the night before and baking in the morning, 100 Morning Treats is truly a cookbook for all bakers and a must-have for lovers of 100 Cookies and Sarah’s inventive recipes.
ACCOMPLISHED AUTHOR: Sarah Kieffer is the beloved blogger behind The Vanilla Bean Blog, past winner of Saveur Reader’s Choice Best Baking & Desserts Blog. Her pan-banging cookie technique went viral on the New York Times website. The author of three cookbooks, she has been featured by Food52, The Today Show, Mashable, The Kitchn, America’s Test Kitchen, Huffington Post, and more. Sarah also has international reach, having worked with brands like Le Creuset, Betty Crocker, Lodge, Mauviel 1830, Nordicware, Icelandic Provisions, Valrhona, Kerrygold, and more.
DELICIOUS SUCCESS: With more than 130,000 copies sold, 100 Cookies is a resounding success, and the seasonal follow-up, Baking for the Holidays, is beloved by bakers nationwide. 100 Morning Treats returns to another year-round baking book with a variety of accessible, reliable, delicious recipes for a wide range of home cooks. Praise for Sarah’s previous books:
100 Cookies:
“Sarah Kieffer is the one who broke the Internet with her pan-banging cookies, large, chocolate-rich, and rippled like sandbars. And this book offers plenty of bangers, with a whole chapter of crinkly treats for those who like to make some noise on the way to dessert. Baking them all could be your winter challenge.”
–The Boston Globe
“Kieffer’s book is a baker’s baking book, but it’s also completely unpretentious. There are cookies for when you just want a good cookie, and more ambitious recipes for when you want to attempt palmiers or break out a culinary torch.”
—Food & Wine
Baking for the Holidays:
“In this cheerful collection, Kieffer, founder of The Vanilla Bean Blog, shares dozens of sweet recipes perfect for the holiday season. . . . Avid holiday bakers should put this on their wish list.”
—Publishers Weekly
SARAH IS KNOWN FOR MORNING BAKES: Sarah got her start baking morning treats in the coffee shops in which she worked. Her very first cookbook, The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, had an entire chapter on morning baking that was well received and well loved. Her readers have been asking for this very book—and now here it is!
GREAT GIFT: With anyone-can-do-it recipes, this is a perfect anytime gift (birthday, Valentine’s Day, Easter, housewarming, etc.) alongside a cute apron or baking product. Package this book together with 100 Cookies and Baking for the Holidays to create an adorable 3-in-1 set for a lucky baker in your life.
Perfect for:
- Home bakers of all levels
- Fans of Sarah Kieffer’s blog, Instagram, or previous cookbooks
- Owners of Dorie’s Cookies, Dessert Person, Snacking Cakes, or Pastry Love
- Early birds who like to bake
- Shoppers looking for a hostess or housewarming gift for bakers and breakfast lovers
100 Morning Treats: With Muffins, Rolls, Biscuits, Sweet and Savory Breakfast Breads, and More by Sarah Kieffer
Prosciutto Gruyère Croissants
Because my Cheater Croissant Dough is used here, I can’t claim these are genuine croissants. I will say, though, that they are flaky and delicious and bake up beautifully. A swirl of prosciutto and Gruyère makes these suitable for breakfast on their own, but you could also use them in Croissant Breakfast Sandwiches (page 229).
All-purpose flour, for dusting
½ recipe Cheater Croissant Dough (see below)
8 slices prosciutto
8 slices Gruyère
Egg wash (see below)
1) Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Generously flour your work surface. Roll out the croissant dough into a rectangle measuring 10 by 15 in [25 by 38 cm]. With a long side facing you, trim the dough so the edges are straight and the long sides measure 14 in [35.5 cm].
2) Using a ruler, mark along the bottom of the dough every 3½ in [9 cm]. Cut long triangles measuring 10 in [25 cm] long and 3½ in [9 cm] wide at the base.
3) Holding the base of a triangle, gently stretch the triangle until it is 12 in [30.5 cm] long. Place the triangle on the work surface. Lay one slice of prosciutto over the wider part of the triangle, and top with a slice of Gruyère. Roll up the dough from the wide end to the tip. Place the rolled croissant on the prepared pan, making sure the pointy end is tucked under (if it is on top, it can pop up during baking). Repeat with the remaining triangles of dough, and space the croissants evenly on the sheet pan (they will puff up quite a bit as they rise and bake). See how-to photos, page 210.
4) Cover the croissants loosely with plastic wrap and let them rise for 2 to 2½ hours, until they are doubled in size and puffed.
5) Position an oven rack in the middle of the oven and pre- heat the oven to 400°F [200°C]. 6) Remove the plastic and brush the croissants with egg wash.
Bake until the croissants are deep golden brown and the layers do not look underbaked, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the sheet pan to a wire rack and let the croissants cool completely. Croissants are best eaten the same day they are made.
Cheater Croissant Dough
This dough is inspired by many different recipes, but specifically Dominique Ansel’s croissant MasterClass and Mandy Lee’s laminated dough in her book The Art of Escapism Cooking. Mandy skips using the butter in a block, instead spreading room-temperature butter over the surface of the dough, and then proceeds with the folding. The results are still amazingly flaky, and it works great in applications such as Morning Buns (page 186), Prosciutto Gruyère Croissants (page 227), and Cruffins (page 205).
1½ cups [360 g] warm water (100 to 110°F [35 to 42°C])
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
4 cups plus 1 tablespoon [577 g] all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon [65 g] granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1½ cups [3 sticks or 339 g] European butter (preferably 83 to 84 percent butterfat), at room temperature (68°F [20°C]) and pliable
1) Grease a large bowl and set aside. In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, stir together the water and yeast and let sit until the yeast has dissolved, about 5 minutes.
2) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, whisk together 4 cups [568 g] of the flour, the granu- lated sugar, and salt. Start the mixer on low speed and add the water-yeast mixture, followed by the melted butter. Continue to mix until all the ingredients are combined, 3 or 4 minutes (see Notes). The dough will be rough and bumpy, but it should be in one piece. Transfer the dough to the greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, 1½ to 2 hours.
3) With your fist, gently press down on the dough, releasing as much gas as possible. Place the dough on a large piece of plastic wrap and shape into a 10 by 12 in [25 by 30.5 cm] rect- angle. Cover the dough with more plastic wrap, place it on a sheet pan, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
EGG WASH To make an egg wash, use a fork to whisk 1 large egg, a pinch of salt, and 1 tablespoon of water together in a small bowl.
Recipe reprinted with permission from Chronicle Books.