These flaky and “buttery” pistachio cruffins use a homemade simple rough puff pastry that’s entirely dairy free with chopped pistachios and filled to the brim with an easy vegan pistachio pastry cream. It’s like a pistachio croissant in muffin form!

pistachio cruffins on parchment paper

Pistachio croissant meets muffin – and it’s so good!

You know, nothing can beat a good homemade croissant (especially these vegan croissants!). However, sometimes, you just don’t want to spend days making them.

Enter in the pistachio cruffin. Like my cannoli cruffins, these pistachio cruffins have all of the flavors and textures of croissants- but baked in muffin form, and way quicker to make. Plus, they’re filled with a ridiculously delicious pistachio pastry cream.

No hours of laminating nor making a perfectly measured beurrage.

These unbelievably vegan pistachio cruffins are like a pistachio croissant- perfect for a holiday morning breakfast or fun weekend brunch. But no eggs nor dairy are required (which trust me, is so hard to find in a bakery out!).

Now you can have your favorite bakery treat at home, and it’s just so easy thanks to using a simple rough puff pastry dough 🙂

sliced open pistachio cruffin

What exactly is a cruffin?

I’m so glad you asked 😉

I talk about this a lot in my cannoli cruffin recipe, but essentially a cruffin is just a croissant baked in muffin form. It has all of the lovely features of a croissant- buttery and flaky with just the right amount of sweetness. But baked in a muffin tin!

Some people use a popover tin, which you can do so here as well. You can also use a large muffin tin too. However, I thought that a regular muffin tin really worked for this method (a slightly different rolling method from my cannoli version).

Can I just use vegan puff pastry?

Technically, yes, but the dough truly won’t feel like a croissant baked in muffin form. It will feel more like, well, a Pillsbury crescent baked in muffin form.

Still delicious, but if you want that short-cut to a croissant, then rough puff is the way to go.

pistachio cruffins on a cooling rack

Overview: how to make and shape pistachio cruffins

For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.

how to make pistachio cruffin dough
The rough puff pastry is some of my favorite yeast-risen dough to work with. You’ll rub the butter into the flour mixture much like you would pie crust. Then add in the yeast mixture and form a rough dough ball. Chill and then we’ll roll out to do our book folds 4x total, working in the crushed pistachios. Finally, chill the dough, and we’ll make our vegan pistachio cream!
shaping pistachio cruffins
Next, we’ll shape our cruffin dough. Once it has been chilled, we’ll roll it out to a 10×15″ rectangle, and slice the dough into 30 strips of 1×7.5″ dough. For rolling, we’ll take three strips, stacking them on top of each other just offset from the top. Then we’ll roll the dough like a pinwheel! Make sure you watch the video to be sure you understand it.
baking pistachio cruffins
Finally, we proof the cruffins. You can either proof them overnight, or let them rise at room temperature for an hour before baking. I sometimes pop them into the turned OFF oven with the oven light on if my kitchen is too cold in the winter. Then we’ll bake and cool before filling with our vegan pastry cream!

Can I omit the pistachio pastry cream?

Of course! These pistachio cruffins are lovely even without the pastry cream. Although, I will say that they taste even more like a bakery.

If you want to still have a burst of pistachio flavor throughout, I’d still recommend incorporating more pistachio butter somewhere- you can spread it onto the rolled out dough before shaping and rolling. Or you can drizzle on top!

vegan cruffin on parchment paper

Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!

If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!

Print
clock clock iconcutlery cutlery iconflag flag iconfolder folder iconinstagram instagram iconpinterest pinterest iconfacebook facebook iconprint print iconsquares squares iconheart heart iconheart solid heart solid icon
vegan cruffin on parchment paper

Homemade Vegan Pistachio Cruffins Recipe

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No reviews
  • Author: Britt Berlin
  • Prep Time: 45
  • Proofing time: 240
  • Cook Time: 18
  • Total Time: 5 hours 3 minutes
  • Yield: 10 1x
  • Category: Pastry
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Vegan
Print Recipe

Description

These flaky and “buttery” pistachio cruffins use a homemade simple rough puff pastry that’s entirely dairy free with chopped pistachios and filled to the brim with an easy vegan pistachio pastry cream. It’s like a pistachio croissant in muffin form!

Ingredients

Scale

Pistachio Cruffin Dough:

  • 2 1/4 cups (315 g) bread flour
  • 3/4 cup (180 g) vegan butter, cold and cubed
  • 1/2 cup (120 mL) warm dairy free milk, like soy milk or oat milk
  • 1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar
  • 7 g active dry yeast
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp almond extract
  • 1/2 cup (120 g) chopped pistachios

Pistachio Pastry Cream:

  • 1 cup (240 mL) heavy vegan cream
  • 1/4 cup (50 g) sugar
  • 30 g cornstarch
  • 1/4 cup (60 g) pistachio butter
  • 1/4 tsp almond extract
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp vegan butter

Pistachio Whipped Cream:

  • 2 cups (480 mL) vegan heavy cream, cold
  • 1/2 tbsp pistachio butter
  • 1 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1/4 tsp almond extract
  • Chopped pistachios, for decoration

Instructions

  1. Prep: Read through all instructions before beginning. You can easily make these as an overnight option, which is what I will describe below. Measure out all ingredients for the cruffin dough. If you want to proof these overnight in the fridge, you’ll start the dough in the morning, and finishing shaping them in the afternoon or evening before proofing them once shaped overnight.
  2. Bloom the yeast: Whisk together the warm dairy free milk and 1 tbsp of the sugar. Then add in the yeast, cover and set aside to bloom. The yeast should be frothy, foamy, and smell yeast-like. If it doesn’t after 10-12 minutes, you might have a bad batch of yeast and will need to start over.
  3. Rub the butter into the flour: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, remaining sugar, and salt. Add the cubed vegan butter, and use clean hands to begin to rub the butter into the flour, like you would pie dough. Try not to warm up the butter too much and there should still be decent sized chunks of butter visible in the flour. Refer to the images above for reference!
  4. Finish the dough: Pour in the yeast mixture, vanilla extract, and almond extract, and either by hand or with a large spoon, begin to mix the dough until you form a slightly shaggy dough ball, but the dry ingredients are all absorbed. You should still see chunks of butter visible in the dough.
  5. Refrigerate the dough: Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap or parchment paper, and refrigerate the dough for 3 hours or overnight. If you’re making these for the morning, you’ll be refrigerating the dough for 3 hours or until the afternoon or evening, when you’ll shape them again.
  6. Laminate and fold in the chopped pistachios: When ready to make the laminations, lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the dough to be about 12-16″ (it doesn’t have to be exact, we’re going to do multiple laminations and the idea is to just create the folds). Sprinkle the dough with 2 tbsp of pistachios, and fold the top third of the dough in towards the middle, followed by the bottom third of the dough towards the middle to create a letter fold. Turn the dough clockwise by a quarter and roll out the dough again. Repeat this process 3 more times for a total of 4 laminations. Wrap the dough again in the plastic wrap and refrigerate for just 30 minutes to allow the dough to rest.
  7. Shape the cruffins: Grease 12-cup muffin tin with oil, and set aside. Lightly flour a clean surface, and place the cruffin dough in the middle. Flour a rolling pin, and roll the dough out to be about 10×15.” Take breaks to lift the dough, ensuring it’s not sticking to the surface. Once rolled out, divide the dough into 2 5×15″ strips (so right down the middle, vertically. Then slice a total of 30 strips, slicing the dough horizontally in 1″ intervals. You should end up with 30 1×7.5″ strips. Take three strips, and line them stacked on top of each other slightly off centered (see photos and video here). Pinch the tops together, then roll the dough like a pinwheel (again, see video and photos). Take the end pieces and pinch them on the bottom to seal your cruffin dough. For an easier shaping method, you can use the cannoli cruffin shaping method.
  8. Proof: Cover the pan. If you’re making these overnight, place the pan to proof in the fridge. If you’re baking these right away, let proof until double in size by the oven and preheat the oven to 375F. It will take about an hour to proof the cruffins at room temperature to be puffy and pillowy.
  9. While the cruffins are proofing, make the pistachio pastry cream filling: You can either do this the night before or before you take the cruffins out to proof again next to the oven. In a small saucepan, whisk together the vegan heavy cream, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla until the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Turn up the heat to medium, and continue whisking the mixture until it begins to thicken, about 5-7 minutes. Once thickened, remove from heat and add in the pistachio butter and vegan butter. Vigorously whisk in until the pistachio butter and butter completely dissolves into the thickened cream. Let the filling cool covered in the fridge.
  10. Bake: If you’ve made the cruffins overnight, place the pan by the oven from the fridge to warm up as the oven preheats to 375F.  Bake the cruffins for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown on top.
  11. Pipe: Allow the cruffins to cool for 15-20 minutes. Gently make a hole with a butter knife or skewer in the middle of the cruffin for a cavity to put the filling. Then fill a piping bag with the pistachio filling. Pipe the pistachio filling into each cruffin.
  12. If making the pistachio whipped cream: Let the pistachio cruffins cool completely before making the whipped cream. In a chilled bowl, add in the cold heavy vegan cream and use a hand mixer to whip the cream into stiff peaks, about 5 minutes. Add in the sugar and pistachio butter, along with the almond extract, and mix again just until combined. Chill the whipped cream until ready to pipe. Then pipe the whipped cream on top of the cruffins and sprinkle with crushed pistachios.
  13. Serve and enjoy! Store any leftovers in an airtight container and in the fridge for up to 3 days, or in the freezer of up to 3 months.

Equipment

Notes

See blog post for all tips and tricks!