Air-Fryer Apple Pie Crescent Rolls

There is a class of dessert that exists somewhere between "I baked something" and "I bought something," and crescent-roll desserts are the queen of that class. The dough comes out of a refrigerated tube. It has no shame about it. You're not making puff pastry from scratch and you're not pretending to — you're using a shortcut that happens to bake into something flaky and gold-brown that nobody at the table will complain about.

These are apple pie in eight bites. Granny Smith because you want the tartness against the cinnamon sugar — Honeycrisp goes too soft, Pink Lady would work in a pinch. You sauté the chopped apple briefly in butter and cinnamon until the kitchen smells like a fall candle, roll each crescent triangle around a tablespoon of filling, brush the tops with more butter, dust them in cinnamon sugar, and air fry at 350°F for seven or eight minutes. They come out the color of toast and they fall apart in your hands.

The photo shows them stacked on parchment, slightly leaking apple at the ends, which is the correct way for them to look. If yours seal up perfectly, you didn't put in enough filling. Serve while still warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you want to be serious about it, or on their own if it's a Wednesday and nobody's looking.