When we found the Uncured Ham & Swiss Cheese Flaky Croissant Dough Squares at our local Trader Joe’s, we thought these pastries would make a great breakfast. With a nice flaky crust and topping of ham and swiss cheese, this seems like the perfect complement to a toasty cup of coffee.
So we picked up a box to see if these pastries could meet our expectations.
The Trader Joe’s Uncured Ham & Swiss Cheese Flaky Croissant Dough Squares are easy enough to cook — though you can’t use a microwave since the dough has not been cooked yet. Simply take some squares out of the box, plop them onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment or foil, and let them thaw while your oven is preheating. Then just put these in for about 20 minutes and you’re done (well, ours admittedly took quite a bit longer than this — closer to a half an hour, we’d say).
Oh, and we forgot to mention that they come individually wrapped, so you can cook as few or as many as you’d like.
Now, a few things surprised us when we pulled these out of the oven. First of all, they’re not as “light and fluffy” as we were expecting. These are actually quite heavy and dense. Additionally, they’re really greasy and sort of hard to bite through. See, the grease (from the ham and cheese) sort of migrates to the middle of each square, so the insides end up being especially dense. You’ll definitely want to use a fork when you eat one of these.
The flavor is great, of course. The crust is flaky with just a touch of sweetness to it. That sweetness is really emphasized by the little cubes of ham, and the swiss cheese is a great finisher. Keep in mind that there is really just a light sprinkling of ham and cheese on the top — these are mostly just flaky pastries.
If you eat just one of these, the 270 calories don’t seem all that bad. However, if you eat two, then you’re looking at 540 calories, which is quite a bit. And if you eat all four in a sitting, yikes! Of course, these are pretty filling, so we doubt you’ll end up eating four in a sitting.
The Trader Joe’s Uncured Ham & Swiss Cheese Flaky Croissant Dough Squares are a pretty good breakfast snack, though with some caveats. They’re a bit dense, and they’re greasy. They also take a while to make. These are designed for those who have plenty of time and are willing to sit down and have a relaxing breakfast.
To learn more about the cooking instructions, nutrition content, or ingredients for these Trader Joe’s croissant squares, check out our package scan below.
