The smell of fresh baking is one that deserves to be enjoyed by everyone. It soothes the soul, travels out of windows and into the street, spreading delight in a way no other scent can. Today’s recipe is particularly aromatic: a cheat’s croissant made with pre-rolled puff-pastry filled with a push-of-a-button pistachio marzipan and sweet cherries. So few ingredients and little work for such lovely smells and so much joy … you may as well fling open the windows (and pass a plate around).

Pistachio and cherry croissants

You can use frozen cherries, if you like – just defrost them fully first. The cherries will produce some juice that you won’t need here, but it keeps for three days in the fridge – use it in cocktails. You’ll need a food processor for the pistachio paste.

Prep 20 min

Cook 1 hr

Makes 16

200g fresh cherries, pitted (or frozen cherries, defrosted)

1 tbsp icing sugar, plus a little extra to dust

100g unsalted pistachio kernels

4 tbsp brown rice syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tbsp flavourless oil, such as rapeseed, plus extra for brushing

Salt

2 x 320g packets pre-rolled puff pastry sheets – I like Jus-Rol’s

Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7, and line two oven trays with nonstick baking paper. Finely chop the cherries, put them in a bowl with the icing sugar and leave to steep.

Finely chop a tablespoon of the pistachios and set aside. Put the rest of the nuts, syrup, vanilla, oil and a good pinch of salt in the bowl of a food processor, and blitz until it comes together like wet dough.

Unfurl one pack of pastry. With the longest side parallel to the edge of the worktop, mark it out into quarters, then cut across the whole sheet from top left to bottom right and top right to bottom left – you will end up with eight pastry triangles. Repeat with the second pastry sheet.

Put a sieve over a small bowl and drain the cherries (reserve the juice). Take one triangle and put the shortest side parallel to the worktop – this should be a long, skinny triangle with a sharp, slightly off-centre point at the top, so stretch the base a bit to even it out.

Put a scant teaspoon each of the pistachio paste and drained cherries on the bottom of the triangle, 2cm from the edge – don’t be tempted to use more, or it’ll be too fat to roll. Roll the bottom edge over the filling and keep rolling, with the filling central – you’ll end up with a chubby bit in the middle and two horns. Fold the horns in towards each other to form a crescent, and pinch the ends closed as necessary.

Put on the lined tray, then repeat with the remaining pastry and filling to make 15 more croissants. Brush each with oil, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until crisp and golden.

Dust liberally with icing sugar and chopped pistachios, and leave to cool.