Gifts for the family and friends- tick, decorating Christmas tree- tick, clean up the house- I am glad we are spending Christmas at my parents’ this year, send cards- for some mysterious reason this is always the very last thing on my ‘to do’ list, sorry for the delay guys! It’s because… Rudolph got lost in English fog and couldn’t deliver all the parcels on time!
I could easily list some more chores and Christmas related tasks waiting to be tackled, but this post would exceed the number of signs I am allowed to use and you would probably fall asleep halfway. All in all, today’s going to be a busy day!

Luckily, I am not alone on the battlefield. I am glad I have my little Elf in the team; she makes my days and fill them with happiness and laughter no matter what. Having additional pair of hands should make things go smoother, at least in theory. Reality shows otherwise though, things that used to take 5 minutes, take at least 15 now. Who am I trying to fool, I am bursting with joy if I manage to accomplish anything within a day. And I don’t mean making mess, because we’ve mastered that art. But you know what, it’s fun! At least most of the times.
In all this hassle and bustle we will find a way to bake. There is  no time to waste, we need to roll up the cuffs!

Today on menu we’ve got something that obviously belongs to dessert category but it’s not just sweet, but also filling. Something that you can easily grab with your morning coffee and run to catch a train. Or just enjoy while sitting peacefully on the sofa.  (Either way is excellent but the second sounds like a dream to me.)  We are going to bake croissants with white poppy-seed and marzipan filling.

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Original Recipe Poppy-seed Croissants

Ingredients
For the crust:
all purpose flour- 600 g
butter- 200 g
salt- just a pinch
eggs- 2 units
yeast- 40 g (I used instant)
brown sugar- 60 g 

For the filling:
black poppy-seed in can- 1 unit
honey- 2 Tbsp
raisins- 1 cup
cinnamon- 1 tsp

Directions
For the crust:
1. Sift flour to a medium size bowl, add cool butter cut into smaller pieces, pinch of salt and eggs. In a separate bowl mix yeast and sugar. After few minutes, when yeast become more of  a liquid consistency pour them into the flour mix. (If you opt for using instant yeast follow instructions on the box in order to activate them).
2. Knead the dough until all ingredient well incorporated. 
3. Form a ball from the dough and wrap it into a piece of cling film. Refrigerate for about an hour. 

For the filling:
1. Mix all the ingredients on the frying pan and keep on a low fire for about 5 minutes. 
2. Take off the stove and cool before assembling croissants. 

For the croissants: 
1. Take dough out of the fridge and roll it with rolling pin until you get a layer no thicker than 3 mm. (Mine were way thicker…). Cut the dough into rectangles of the following dimensions: 12×8 cm. Next, cut each of the rectangles into two triangles (cut diagonally).
2. Using Tbsp place 1 up to 2 spoons of filling on the wider part of the triangle and roll towards pointy end.
3. Brush croissants with whisked egg white (next time I will brush them with yolk for the better colour) and sprinkle with brown sugar. 
4. Bake for about 15 minutes in 165C.

Enjoy!  

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I used above recipe to make dough and completely improvised with the filling. The idea of mixing white poppy-seed pulp with marzipan seemed to be far much more appealing than stuffing croissants with black seeds and raisins. If you like my idea simply mix the poppy-seed pulp with marzipan (proportions 2:1) on the frying pan and keep it on the low fire for about 5 minutes so that excess water from both evaporates. Add 1 Tbsp of honey and fist-full of chopped almonds as per original recipe and you are ready to roll your croissants.  Again, choice of filling is completely down to your preference. Just listen to your gut. 😉