It was a rainy fall evening and, after an unseasonable dinner of takeout sushi, my sweet tooth started acting up. It happens every night, but I was in a desperate situation: there was nothing sweet in the apartment, save the brown sugar that had cemented itself against a supposedly air-tight glass jar.

After some investigating, I spotted a half-empty box of prepared puff pastry in the freezer. And I had plenty of pumpkin pie spice that I had used to make sweet potato custard. With these two findings, it was essential I dislodge enough of the brown sugar from the bottom of the jar to muster up a decent dessert. And that’s exactly what I did.

Here are the ingeniously named, Puff Pastry Snakes:

Okay, so they look pretty strange now that I’m seeing them again. But they’re damn good. Simply unfold a sheet of thawed puff pastry, work it with a rolling pin (or, if you’re me, a wine bottle) to seal the seams, sprinkle generously with brown sugar and pumpkin spice (or cinnamon, or whatever), roll tightly, cut into one-inch segments and bake in a 350-degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 minutes on each side.

They become crispy and flaky and, if you’re lucky, the brown sugar oozes onto the tops and bottoms of the snakes, creating a caramel coating. They go perfectly with a cup of tea.