Easy Italian croissant recipe

An Italian Coffee and a Croissant (Caffè e Cornetto) is a classic breakfast eaten in Italy. Here is a quick way to make it!

cornetto and crema

by Ellen Kinsey |
Updated on

This Italian-style croissant called cornetto, meaning “little horn”, is based on a typical Viennese dessert: kipfel. A cornetto is made with flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, butter and yeast and can be served empty or filled with cream or other fillings.

Since we cannot buy a cornetto fresh from a cafe for breakfast, here is a simple recipe made from pre-made puff pastry from Solo Dolce.

So, brew yourself a morning coffee, grab a croissant and pretend you are in the cobblestoned streets of Rome!

cornetto and coffee

Prep Time: 30 mins

Cook Time: 30 mins

Servings: 5

Ingredients

1 pkg puff pastry thawed in the refrigerator

100 g pastry cream (the process to make pastry cream is on another one of my recipes) 7 tbsp

100 g cocoa almond cream 7 tbsp

Method

  1. Open up puff pastry on a well-floured work surface.
  1. Gently roll each piece, divide in 4 parts with a knife, and from each part cut 2 triangles.
  1. In one triangle put a teaspoon of pastry cream or cocoa cream.
  1. Roll it from the base of the triangle until the tip.
  1. Brush the surface with beaten white egg and put it into the preheated oven at 180°C(356°F) for about 25-30 minutes.
  1. After, remove the croissants from the oven and sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

If you want to take your cornetto one step further here is Solo Dolce's recipe for pastry cream.

Pastry Cream (Crema Pasticcera)

crema

Prep Time 35 mins

Resting Time 2 hrs

Ingredients

5 egg yolks

125 g sugar 4.4 oz

45 g corn starch 3 tbsp

500 ml whole milk 2 cups

1 scraped vanilla bean

1 grated lemon peel

Method

  1. Put the milk with the scraped vanilla pod in a small saucepan, and bring it to a boil
  1. Remove the pan from the stove and filter the milk.
  1. Separately, in a bowl pour the egg yolks, the vanilla caviar, sugar and the grated zest and whisk vigorously until completely combined.
  1. When the mixture is blended, add the corn starch sieved in, stir well to incorporate it.
  1. Pour the milk into the mixture of egg yolks, sugar and corn starch
  1. Put on the stove and stir constantly with a whisk (the egg begins to coagulate at 52 °C (125.6°F) temperature; the cooking is complete at just 67°C (152.6°F). If it is cooked too much, the cream will have a strong smell of egg.
  1. Remove the cream from the stove as soon as it starts to thicken.
  1. Cool it quickly by pouring it into a cold pan and continue to stir with a whisk bringing it to a temperature below 50°C (122°F), this allows it to maintain the consistency of the cream intact.
  1. The pastry cream would be ready for use; otherwise cover with plastic wrap in contact with the surface of the cream, let it finish cooling at room temperature and then refrigerate.

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