Crescent Roll Challenge Part 5 - Nutella

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Pillsbury crescent rolls.  They hold so many memories for me, in particular during holiday meals.  With my new found interest in baking, my love of candy, and my fondness for Pillsbury crescent rolls, I've decided to do a little experiment.  Each day this week I'm going to bake a Pillsbury crescent roll filled with a different sweet filling.  Some are very conventional, others... well not so much.

While I've never actually baked Nutella into crescent rolls before, I have eaten crescent rolls with Nutella spread on it.  I figured that this would be a no brainier and a fine way to end my experiment.  It was a little messy to roll, and difficult to figure out how much was enough.

Strangely, I have to say that this crescent roll was a bit of a failure.  Something happened to the Nutella when it was baked into the crescent roll.  It became very oily and didn't hold together well at all.  I was expecting a nice creamy center, but I didn't get it.  My suggestion is, if you want Nutella with your crescent rolls, just wait till they're out and spread it on.

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Crescent Roll Challenge Part 4 - Dark Chocolate

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Pillsbury crescent rolls.  They hold so many memories for me, in particular during holiday meals.  With my new found interest in baking, my love of candy, and my fondness for Pillsbury crescent rolls, I've decided to do a little experiment.  Each day this week I'm going to bake a Pillsbury crescent roll filled with a different sweet filling.  Some are very conventional, others... well not so much.

This particular crescent roll is what I would call a classic.  I can't tell you how many times I've eaten a chocolate filled crescent roll in my life.  The difference is, this one is filled with dark chocolate, as opposed  milk chocolate, that seems to be the favorite of most bakeries.  I chose an 85% Lindt chocolate for this, because this is Allison's chocolate of choice and it's what we had in our chocolate box.

I have to say that I was pretty disapointed in the dark chocolate.  It was just really bitter and it made the crescent roll seem really dry.  I normally don't mind dark chocolate, but in this case I think a milk chocolate would have been much nicer.  I think it has something to do with the butter in the Pillsbury dough, I just think it doesn't work (flavour wise) with the dark chocolate.

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Crescent Roll Challenge Part 3 - Peanut Butter M&Ms

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Pillsbury crescent rolls.  They hold so many memories for me, in particular during holiday meals.  With my new found interest in baking, my love of candy, and my fondness for Pillsbury crescent rolls, I've decided to do a little experiment.  Each day this week I'm going to bake a Pillsbury crescent roll filled with a different sweet filling.  Some are very conventional, others... well not so much.

You know why I decided to use Peanut Butter M&Ms for this Pillsubury crescent roll?  Mostly because I happened to have a bag of them.  I also figured that both peanut butter and M&Ms individually would be interesting to try inside a crescent roll but together it might be twice as interesting. As you can see from the picture, they pretty much instantly started to bleed the minute they touched the pastry dough.

Strangely enough, after being in the over for 10 minutes they didn't completely melt.  It appears that the colour layer is truly the weakest layer.  While the solidity of the M&Ms was nice, it might have been a little tastier if the peanut butter and chocolate melted a little more.  Melted it would have distributed the peanut butter and chocolate flavour a little more.  I'd be interested in trying this with the other M&Ms in the future.

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Crescent Roll Challenge Part 2 - Gummy Bears

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Pillsbury crescent rolls.  They hold so many memories for me, in particular during holiday meals.  With my new found interest in baking, my love of candy, and my fondness for Pillsbury crescent rolls, I've decided to do a little experiment.  Each day this week I'm going to bake a Pillsbury crescent roll filled with a different sweet filling.  Some are very conventional, others... well not so much.

With this second Pillsbury crescent roll filling, I figured I'd just go for the ultimate candy filling, gummy bears. I have to admit, part of the fun of making this particular crescent roll was in how my imagination played out a story of gummy bears being captured and then baked alive in a crescent roll.  To be fair to my gummy bears, I made sure I took one of each colour.

This has to be one of the messiest crescent rolls I've ever baked in my life.  I was very careful to seal up the edges, but it did nothing.  The gummy stuff oozed out of the sides and created a pretty good mess.  Fortunately I've learned with melted gummies that it's better to wait for it to cool before you try cleaning it up.  As the goo cools, it becomes less sticky, more solid, and you can pretty much just peel it off your counter.  The flavour of the crescent roll wasn't bad, I think if I was to do this again, I'd probably just use one colour at a time.

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Crescent Roll Challenge Part 1 - Cream Cheese and Dried Cranberries

 

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Pillsbury crescent rolls.  They hold so many memories for me, in particular during holiday meals.  With my new found interest in baking, my love of candy, and my fondness for Pillsbury crescent rolls, I've decided to do a little experiment.  Each day this week I'm going to bake a Pillsbury crescent roll filled with a different sweet filling.  Some are very conventional, others... well not so much.

My first crescent roll filling experiment comes from my friend Carrie.  She's a cranberry fanatic, in fact she's such a cranberry fanatic that she felt it important that I don't go without while I'm in Greece.  She sent me a huge bag with more than enough dried cranberries to keep me going for a few years.  She also suggested, when I asked around, that I try filling one of these Pillsbury crescent rolls with goat cheese and cranberries.  Well truth be told, I don't really like goat cheese, I do however love cream cheese, so I figured it would be a fine substitute.

While this really doesn't qualify as a candy filling, it certainly doesn't qualify as a savory filling either.  It's a pretty good filling idea if you don't want to go super sweet, but also want a bit of a treat.  It's also a great way to use up dried cranberries when you happen to have a giant bag of them.  I will be making these again, particularly if we have guests over.

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