Mayfair Catering, London’s corporate caterer. Some weeks, we bake 3000 plus croissants, many of these go to waste, if it’s a hot day, we find a lower percentage are eaten, etc. Once baked until now they couldn’t be reused. We would never offer anything other than totally fresh croissants to our delegates.

Now, in addition to offering fresh croissants in the Hallam Conference Centre on a day after an excess of croissants, we are taking a hint from TikTok and offering flat caramelised croissants. Here’s the recipe we use, thank you to L Elliott:

Flat Croissant

Preparation time: 2 minutes

Cooking time: 5 minutes per croissant

Serves: 3

• 3x70g/2.5ozs butter croissants
• 60g/2ozs butter, divided into 3
• 90g/3ozs brown sugar or honey, divided into 3
• 100g/3.5 oz ruby or pink-tinted white chocolate (optional)
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil or mild flavoured oil (optional)
• 6 freeze-dried raspberries (optional)
• You will also need a non-stick pan, rolling pin, 3 large sheets of parchment and a cast iron pot or other heavy-weight

Step 1 – With a rolling pin, gently press down on each croissant, flattening it. Be gentle about this and don’t tear them. Place a third of the butter in a pan on medium heat and melt. Then add the honey or sugar and stir and form a caramel. Gather the caramel in the centre of the pan and place the croissant on the caramel.

Step 2 –Cover with the parchment and then the heavy pot and press down and wait for 2 minutes. Then remove the pot and the paper and gently flip it over pushing as much caramel underneath the other side. Place the paper and the pot on again and weigh down for 2 minutes. If there is still caramel in the pan spoon it over the croissant and then place on the parchment paper to cool. Repeat with the other croissants.

Step 3 –Melt the chocolate in a microwave or double boiler until melted. Stir in the oil and mix until smooth. Dip the croissant in the chocolate (I love the chocolate dip so much I dipped the whole back in the chocolate). Sprinkle with the freeze dried raspberries and allow the chocolate to set.

A few hints to improve

1 – Flat croissants are a great frugal recipe if you have day old stale croissants. Just make sure that they are all butter croissants as the butter flavour is what makes these taste so, so good.

2 – Using honey will give you a lighter coloured result than brown sugar but I found that brown sugar caramelised a bit too easily (I had to discard my first croissant using brown sugar as it was too burnt).

3 – The key is to control the heat so that the caramel doesn’t burn. For this reason I’d suggest starting with a honey butter caramelised croissant first and only using medium heat. High heat will burn the caramel too quickly.

4 – Make sure to cook these for 2 minutes on each side only but keep flipping until all the caramel is used.

5 – I used a large cast iron pot that fit into the frying pan but I also pushed it down while it was frying. If you have a smaller pot that you can push down that will also work. Some people suggest a pot with water but that could be messy (and I’m clumsy!).

6 – Don’t worry if your caramelised croissant isn’t hard when you take it out of the pan. The caramel will harden up upon cooling. The brown sugar caramel ones harden up quicker than the honey ones.

7 – The quantities below are for medium sized croissants. You can also use large croissants but you will have to adjust the amount of caramel according to the weight because you want to make sure that you have enough caramel.

This builds on our many initiatives we have instigated t reduce our environmental impact.

• Planting Trees
• Use otherwise unsellable fruit & Veg
• Reducing food waste with Too Good to Go
• Committing to WRAP’s Food Waste Roadmap
• Gold for Recycling
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If you are looking for a sustainable London based events caterer, please get in touch:enquires@mayfaircateing.com or 0207 323 0112