Croissants

So Ive been making croissants for a while and I notice that they only get better and better as you make them. I don't believe that this is something you can ever perfect, but that there is always room for improvement. It also takes a good amount of experience and dedication to get this right, so I'll throw in as many tips as I can.

Danish Pastry Dough:

Water: 7 oz
Yeast (dry): 5/8 oz or 20 grams
Bread flour: 5 oz
Sugar: 2.5 oz
Salt: .75 oz
Milk: 12 oz
Water: 1.5 oz
Bread Flour: 2 lb
Butter: 1.5 lb -- Cold

(keep in mind that this will make TONS of croissants-- In my photos I doubled the recipe because I wanted to experiment a bit more, the single recipe above makes about 30. If you have use for that many, you should definitely make it, but if you do not, this is just a recipe for temptation)

So the first step is to dissolve the yeast in warm water (105 to 115 degrees) You then want to sprinkle on the first amount of bread flour without mixing. In the 5 minutes this takes to dissolve, you then want to add the sugar salt milk and water and stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. You also want to measure out the remaining flour.

After the 5 minutes are up you can go ahead and mix up the yeast and the first amount of flour that is sprinkled on top of it. You then want to alternate between adding the liquid and the flour and mix by hand. Do not over mix! You don't not want to kneed this like you would bread dough because you don't want it to be as tough as bread. To get the nice crumbly consistency you need low gluten development which means high fat and little mixing.

From here you can knead it very briefly on the counter top. its alright if you don't end up using all of the flour. Flours and their ability to absorb moisture change all the time, thought they are somewhat standardized into categories like bread flour and pastry flour. If you don't use all of the flour, use some of it when kneading to be sure that the dough doesn't stick to the counter top. You want your dough to be sticky and you want to kneed it only enough to be sure it is homogeneous and cohesive.

When you are finished kneeding you can use some oil to grease a large bowl (at least twice the size of the dough) and put the dough in there, letting the oil lightly coat all sides of the dough. You then cover it with pastic wrap and let it rise until doubled in volume.

When it is finished rising, you then want to punch it down. Pull the dough up from all sides and push down into the center and turn the dough upside down to release the CO2 that is built up. From here you can wrap tightly in plastic and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Some people insist on letting it sit overnight. If you are going to do this, please wrap tightly. The yeast is less active at fridge temperatures but it is still active and the dough might explode if there arent at least three layers of saran wrap keeping it in.

When this is going into the fridge you should be taking out your butter. You want to take the rolling pin that you are going to use for the project and beat the cold butter until it is nice at flat, as seen below. You are doing this because it will be easier to incorporate into the dough later. I recommend beating the butter with the wrapper still on, that way its less mess on the rolling pin. The wrapper will still come off easily, no worries. You want to then line up these butter slices and put them back in the fridge. When you take out the dough to roll it out, you are going to take out the butter too.

The key to good croissants that don't bleed butter out the edges is having the dough and the butter at the same consistency. This is very important because whichever is warmer is going to move faster with the rolling pin and cause unevenness. Even worse, when you are doing butter enveloped in dough like this, it is easy for the butter to squirt out if it is too warm. Trust me, you dont want this to happen. It is not only the worst mess in the world, but from there it is extremely difficult to salvage the croissants. My first few attempts at making them failed in this regard. So the key to having even consistency is to have them both at a similar temperature--cold. Any time you are working with the dough it should be cold.

So now you have taken the dough and the butter out of the fridge. You are to beat the dough with the rolling pin real quick to loosen it up and then roll it out into a 1X3 rectangle like this picture. You then want to use the still cold butter to cover about 2/3 of that rectangle leaving some space (about an inch or so) around the edges to be able to seal it when you create the envelope. The picture below doesn't have butter in it, but this is still how you fold the final product. Fold in thirds so that the layers go dough-butter-dough-butter-dough. Push out any air bubbles and seal the edges tight by pinching them. Don't try to roll it out at this point. Refrigerate again for about 30 minutes or more. This will not only bring things to an even temperature, but it will relax the gluten strands in the dough and allow it to stretch further without breaking, which is another key to making good croissants.

When you take the envelope out you want to be sure you have a well floured surface to roll on. Once the layers start to form they are going to be very thin and anything that causes them to stick will tear them, leaving a nice open wound of gushing butter to cover your counter top. Not fun. So from here you want to beat the envelope with a rolling pin until it starts to get a bit more maleable. Additionally, you want to roll it in the opposite direction you did the last time. The side that was the 3 in the 1x3 should now be the 1. This means that the edges of the envelope should be the parts that will be 1 and the sealed bottom and top will be 3. This ensures that you aren't stretching the gluten in only 1 direction (which will eventually break it). When you roll you want to have more downward pressure than outward-- push down as though you were trying to flatten it, don't push across the dough, that will drag only the top layers with it and that would be bad. This is called your first turn. A turn is when you turn the dough 90 degrees, roll it out, and then fold it up again. You are going to fold just the way you did before and refrigerate again. Then you want to repeat this 3 more times. Each time you roll and fold you are creating more and thinner layers of dough and butter. This is how the flaky layer texture of the croissant is achieved. By the end, if you cut the dough in half you should see tons of tiny layers piled up. You want these to be even. You want there to be over 100 layers.

When you achieve this, refrigerate again and then roll out this dough one last time. You then cut the dough into triangles. You want to make the base of each triangle a bit wide. As you roll the croissants from the base upwards toward the tip, you want to pull the tip away, stretching the dough and making the roll tighter. It just looks nicer that way-- no impact on flavor :) Then you want to take the wings of that base that you elongated and pull them inward. The finished roll should look like the ones you see here. Cover and let rise at 80 degrees for about an hour, or until you see them get large and puffy.

As for baking, you want either parchment paper or a silpat to bake on. There will be butter. They key is not having so much butter that the croissants are simmering in their own juices. If you've done it right, they shouldn't. Bake at 400 degrees for as long as it takes to get the tops nicely golden brown. Even if the outsides look done, the insides might not be, so to be safe, if you have an internal thermometer you should definitely check to see when the croissants reach above 200 degrees on the inside. That is the key to knowing that they are done. Any additional time in the oven will just make them look better if thats what you're going for. Mine went to about 220 internal temp, and they were just perfect.

I highly recommend taking them out and immediately throwing them on some absorptive towels. You want to get off as much grease as you possibly can. Any butter that is reabsorbed by the croissants will make it heavy and very fatty, so its good to have something like a paper towel spread layed out for when they come out.

It takes a lot of time and its a lot of work, but it is also fun and tasty, and besides that, not a very common skill outside the professional pastry world. Definitely worth the work.



~Jules