Easy Raspberry Cream Cheese Cruffins with Crescent Rolls

Start your day with raspberry cream cheese cruffins made with crescent rolls for a quick and easy breakfast or dessert. This homemade filled cruffin recipe combines the flaky layers of a croissant with a sweet, creamy filling. Perfect for baking beginners, these muffins are a delicious mix of Pillsbury simplicity and bakery-style elegance. Try the best cruffin recipe for a sweet treat everyone will love!

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What is a cruffin?

That is a very good question. A cruffin is a croissant in the shape of a muffin or a muffin made from crescent roll dough. They can be savory or sweet, though I prefer the sweet ones. Savory cruffins are often stuffed with garlic and softened butter, while sweet ones have a couple of options, including cinnamon sugar, cream cheese, and fruit fillings, or any combination of the three. I've even seen cruffins made with raisins or another dried fruit!

My dreamy raspberry cream cheese cruffins are in a league of their own with a rich cheesecake-like filling and a sweet layer of raspberry preserves. Top them with raspberry glaze and a fresh red raspberry, and you have the most gorgeous treats you can imagine - perfect for Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, or any day of the year.

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Why these are the best crescent roll cruffins

It's a simple and easy crescent roll muffin recipe. Because it starts with refrigerated crescent roll dough, all you have to do is mix up the cream cheese filling, spread it and the fruit on the dough, cut and roll the cruffins, and bake. It is a very easy cruffin recipe.

The ingredients for this easy recipe are very common. You probably have most of the simple ingredients already in your pantry, and the remaining couple are available in every grocery I've ever visited.

These cruffins taste great. The combination of the sweet cream cheese mixture and fruit filling is almost like have a mini cheesecake stuffed in crescent roll dough. They are sweet and so delicious.

This recipe is allergy friendly. As written, this recipe is soy-free, egg-free, and nut-free. If you can find a vegan cream cheese and used a non-dairy milk, and the recipe would be dairy-free and vegan. Pillsbury's crescent rolls are definitely egg-free and dairy-free according to their website. (I'm not sure about other brands.) Most commercially prepared crescent roll dough does contain gluten, but I have seen gluten-free croissant dough recipes online, so that is an option. As always, please check your specific ingredients to ensure that they fit within your dietary needs.

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What you'll need to make cream cheese cruffins

Equipment

• 12-cup Muffin pan - Obviously, if you're making muffins, you need a muffin pan.
• Rolling Pin - You'll use a rolling pin to seal the perforations in the crescent roll dough. If you can find crescent roll sheets, you wouldn't need this. Or, if you want to use your fingers to press all those little holes together, you could do that instead of using a rolling pin.
• Electric mixer - I think the cream cheese mixture comes together much more easily with a mixer, although if you really must, you could use a whisk and beat it by hand.
• Citrus juicer - I always juice my own lemons using my handy dandy little citrus press. They are cheap and last forever. (I still have the one I bought in 2001.) If you don't have a citrus press, look up how to juice a lemon on YouTube, and I'm sure you will find a method to do it with a fork or something.
• Wire rack - You'll need a way to cool the muffins when they are first out of the oven. This also provides a method to drizzle the glaze over the muffins without the glaze puddling around the muffins and making them soggy.
• Parchment paper - This is just to line the counter when you're drizzling the glaze over the cooled cruffins. If you don't have parchment, you could use paper towels or even a kitchen towel that you will then throw in the washing machine because it will be a sticky mess.

Ingredients

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See the printable recipe card at the bottom of the page for all measurements and nutritional information.

For the cruffins

• Flour for dusting the working surface - Any wheat or gluten-free flour will be fine since you're just using it to keep the dough from sticking to the counter.
• Refrigerated crescent rolls - Any brand of store-bought dough is fine. Some people prefer Pillsbury but I don't think it really matters very much unless you have an allergy. If you can find it, a sheet of crescent roll dough shortcuts the process a bit because you won't have to seal the seams. You can make your own dough if you want to, instead of using store-bought. See the substitutions section below for instructions on making cruffins using puff pastry sheets.
• Cream cheese - I typically use the lower fat Neufchatel but I think the full fat version works better in this particular recipe.
• Granulated sugar - This is plain white sugar. Feel free to use a sugar substitute if you prefer. You need the rich cream cheese to achieve the cheesecake flavor you're after.
• Vanilla bean paste - I prefer vanilla bean paste over plain vanilla extract for two reasons. The paste has a much more potent and robust vanilla flavor, so I think that's important, but also, vanilla bean paste has actual vanilla beans crushed up in it. Vanilla extract is made by soaking vanilla beans in alcohol and then removing the beans. Vanilla bean paste is made from concentrated vanilla extract that has had crushed up vanilla beans added to it. If you don't want to get vanilla bean paste, you can use an equal amount of pure vanilla extract.
• Heavy cream - This is just used to thin the cream cheese mixture in order to make it spreadable. If you don't want to buy a whole carton of heavy cream, a splash of whole milk or half-and-half will work.
• Sweet raspberry preserves - I used raspberry because that's what I had on hand. If you have a jar of different fruit preserves, feel free to use that instead. Any fruit under the sun would be great in this recipe. Peach, apricot, cherry, grape, blueberry, orange marmalade, probably even rhubarb jelly would be nice. Seriously, use any kind of fruit.

For the glaze

• Powdered sugar - Powdered sugar is known as icing sugar in most of the world because it's the foundation of almost all icings and glazes. I really don't know how you would make the glaze without powdered sugar or a powdered sugar substitute.
• Lemon juice - Freshly squeezed if possible as you will taste the lemon juice in the glaze. If you use lemon juice from a bottle, it will not have the same bright fresh flavor that freshly squeezed lemon juice will have. Lemons cost about 69¢ a piece at my grocery store, and it's a splurge worth making.
• Raspberry preserves - I recommend you use the same fruit flavor that you used in the muffins, although if you want to experiment with different flavors, you do you.

How to make the best cruffins with crescent rolls

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease or butter the wells of your muffin pan.
2. Lightly sprinkle flour over your working surface. Unroll all three crescent roll tubes onto the counter.  Use a rolling pin to press the perforated lines in each sheet together. Do not roll too much; each sheet should be just a little larger than what they were out of the tube.
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3. Add cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla bean paste to a medium bowl and use an electric mixer with beaters to mix together.  Add the heavy cream a splash at a time and incorporate to make the cream cheese mixture easier to spread.
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4. Spread the cream cheese mixture over all three sheets of dough, leaving about a ½-inch border all the way around the edges of the dough. Spread raspberry preserves over the cream cheese, staying within the border you created.
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5. Roll each sheet of dough from long end of the rectangle to the other long edge into a tight roll, trying not to squeeze the filling out.
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6. Cut each roll in half creating 6 smaller logs of dough.
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7. Cut each of those 6 logs in half, making a small log. Repeat for a total of 12 small logs. 
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8. Twist each log around itself about three times, making it fatter in the middle and a little narrower at the bottom and top, so it sits down in the tin. Pinch the edge of dough when you reach the edge to close the spiral and drop the cruffins into the prepared muffin tin. Bake for 16-20 minutes in the preheated oven.
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9. Remove cruffins from the oven when they are golden brown on top.
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10. While the cruffins are baking, mix powdered sugar, lemon juice, and raspberry preserves in a small bowl.
11. Let the cruffins cool on a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes.  Place a piece or parchment paper or a baking sheet under the wire rack, then drizzle each cruffin with the raspberry glaze.
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12. Before the glaze sets, top each cruffin with a fresh red raspberry. When the glaze hardens, the berry will be stuck in place.
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Baker's tips for the best cruffins

Gather all the ingredients before beginning to bake and prepare pans ahead of time. I do not recommend using nonstick cooking spray on baking pans as it builds up over time and creates a sticky residue on the pan. I always use a stick of butter and rub it over the surfaces that will come in contact with the food, but you can grease your muffin pan however you want.

Anytime you bake, make sure all ingredients are at room temperature unless stated otherwise in the recipe. The exception in this recipe is the crescent roll dough which gets really sticky and unpleasant to work with if it's not very cold.

You can use store bought raspberry preserves or, if you like a little less sugar, make your own puree with raspberries, a little orange or lemon juice, and your choice of sugar or sugar substitute. Cook the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring often, until it reaches a preserves consistency. If you prefer, you can mash the fruit a bit to make a smoother texture to your preserves.

You can use any fruit you want in the homemade preserves above and in the cruffin recipe.

Sharpen and hone your knife prior to cutting the dough to prevent the filling from squishing out when you cut. If you can't do that, use unflavored dental floss to cut through the dough to limit the squishing.

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Variations & substitutions

I made my cruffins with raspberry preserves, but you can substitute any fruit preserves you have. Strawberry, peach, apricot, blueberry, cherry - truly any fruit will be amazing in these little crescent roll muffins. You can also use a combination of two fruits if you want to get a little adventurous. Peach raspberry would be delicious.

Make cinnamon sugar cruffins by leaving out the fruit and sprinkling the cream cheese filling with cinnamon sugar. (You can make that by mixing ½ cup granulated sugar with 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, more or less to your taste.) Then instead of glaze, sprinkle the hot cruffins with additional cinnamon-sugar mixture.

You can also use puff pastry instead of crescent rolls. The process is pretty much the same except you don't ever want to press puff pastry with a rolling pin as this will deflate the layers and prevent them from puffing up in the oven. Simply unfold the sheets of puff pastry, spread on the cream cheese and preserves, and roll it up. The baking time with be different than it is for crescent rolls. Follow the baking instructions on the puff pastry box.

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Storing leftover cruffins 

Store fully cooled cruffins in an airtight container on the counter for 2-3 days. They will last a couple days longer if you store them in the refrigerator, but baked goods tend to get stale faster in the fridge. Do not eat cruffins if they have mold on them or smell sour.

You can freeze unglazed cruffins. Place them on a baking sheet in the freezer for 2-3 hours or until they are firm. Then transfer them to a zippered freezer bag or airtight container and store in the freezer up to a month. You can thaw them on the counter when you're ready to eat.

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Try these other hand-held sweet breakfasts:

• Cheesecake Stuffed French Toast Muffins
• Raspberry Cream Cheese Cruffins with Crescent Rolls
• Cranberry Orange Muffins
• Blueberry Orange Muffins
• Coffee Cake Crumb Donuts
• Baked Vanilla Cake Donut Recipe
• Easy Baked or Fried Yeast Zebra Donuts
• Baked Double Chocolate Donut Recipe
• Air Fryer Donuts
• Baked Gluten Free Glazed Donut Recipe with Almond Flour
• Baked Vegan Double Chocolate Donuts
• Glazed Pumpkin Spice Donuts
• Mini Cinnamon Rolls
• Pancake Tacos

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