Croissants with Dates and Eishta
Croissants with Dates and Eishta
Croissants with Dates and Eishta are a wonderful choice for a quick and easy, but wonderfully indulgent breakfast. A breakfast for a special occasion like a Birthday or Mothers’ Day perhaps. Or maybe to cheer someone up, say “Thank You” or make them feel special. You know what I mean, this is a truly exceptional breakfast and always goes down well, especially with someone with a sweet tooth.
When the dates are warmed, they soften and make an almost caramel toffee centre which is then smothered with whipped cream and drizzled with sweet runny honey. It’s the next best thing to having cream cakes for breakfast!
In the Egyptian countryside it’s most common to buy milk straight from a neighbour who has a cow. You then boil it to pasteurize it. Eishta is the wonderful fresh cream that you skim from the top of the milk when it’s boiled. In England, I realise that’s its not that easy to find a neighbour who has a cow that you can buy raw milk from, so as an alternative just use clotted cream or whipped double cream instead.
You need nice soft dates
For this recipe you need soft dates. In even quite recent years these were only available in shops that sold Arabic provisions. Nowadays, however, they are available in just about every supermarket. If the dates are a little dry then melt a couple of spoonfuls of butter in a frying pan over a low heat and add the chopped dates. Cook for just a couple of minutes and the dates will become as soft as caramel.
This recipe is enough for 4 people or 2 hungry people.
Ingredients
- 4 croissants
- 12 dates – stones removed and chopped up
- 250ml eishta, clotted cream or double cream, whipped
- runny honey to drizzle
Heat the croissants in a warm oven
Warm the croissants for a minute in a warm oven. A warm oven is better than the microwave, simply because it keeps the croissants crisp. In a microwave croissants tend to go a bit soft and limp.
Cut the croissants through the middle and split them open.
Let’s put these croissants with dates and eishta together
Spread the dates on the warm croissant followed by the whipped cream. Drizzle a little of the honey over the top. Then you will have a truly indulgent breakfast ready to spoil the best of them – yourself included.
Go ahead treat yourself!