Croissants

February 25, 2021meza-admin

Prep time: 72 hours

Cook time: 20 minutes

Serves: 12 large croissants

Behind every great croissant cross-cut photo there is an author who spent blocks and blocks of butter trying to understand what he’s doing wrong and how to overcome the failures that seem to not make sense. Throughout my journey of baking a perfect croissant at home, I will cover all the tips and tricks I learned from the first gruesome fail to a croissant I’m pleasantly happy with. Of course, with a little help from my friends @CookieLabSplit.

Before we start let’s cover the basic ingredients and how to get the most out of each.

The butter:

When making croissants, the key everyone will tell you is to use best quality butter you can find. Blindly I listened, went out and purchased the best and most expensive slab of butter I could find in my local area. The result? My butter tourage broke into pieces during lamination causing a marbled texture of the dough which resulted in a completely uneven rise.

So, when making croissants, do not buy the best butter, but best butter for croissants. What that means is to find the butter that can withstand high dilatation without breaking.

The apparent signs to avoid are: a swirly shape throughout the interior of your butter slab resembling a tree ring. (as you can see in the photo above.) This is caused by the excess water remained inside the butter during shaping after the churning process. While this butter can be of unquestionable quality on it’s own, it will break apart during laminating between each joint. Check the firmness by squeezing it. Even cold in the fridge it should not be rock hard when squeezed. Too firm butters resist stretching even at higher temperatures.

The flour:

Now that we purchased our croissant worthy butter, we can head home as other ingredients are all basic ingredients we have sitting on the shelf. Or are they?

Making proper croissants was really understanding each ingredient separately for me. Once I figured out what was wrong with my butter I encountered a problem of low rise and little if any air pockets. The reason behind the poor rise was in the flour. Again, like previously it’s not just the quality of the flour, it’s the type. What worked for me may not work for you, besides, making perfect croissants in one try is a shot in the dark if I might say.

Look for flour rich in protein (around 13-15%). The higher the protein amount, the stronger the flour is, which is essential for leavaining the layers of fat. Most all-purpose flours range from 9.5-11% protein, which from my personal experience is insufficient for achieving the flaky and airy interior of the croissant.

Same case as before with the butter, you will have to find the flour, or the flour combination that suits you the most, what worked best for me was a combination of Manitoba and strong bread flour.

As for the other ingredients, before experimenting, please bear in mind that – for a croissant to be perfect, the dough itself has to be an ideal balance of all ingredients, so if a specified amount of an ingredient is listed, it’s there for a reason. For example, Sugar not only provides richness taste wise, but is more importantly food for the yeast, if we were to not add sugar or use too little, our croissants will not ferment properly and will lose color and texture. Also, sugar absorbs part of the moisture of the dough, so you have to adjust the hydration depending on the sugar content.

Water temperature plays a huge role as well as it controls the rate of the fermentation. The temperature varies greatly from the room temperature the dough is being made in. For cold winter days, use water 26-28*C and for hot summer days use cold water 10-12*C.

Also, some may suggest adding butter at the start of the kneading process, though butter may inhibit gluten formation “coating” the proteins that would form gluten. First you knead the dough to develop gluten, and then add the butter around the already formed gluten.

Proofing:

Besides the ingredients, the biggest place for errors lies in the proofing. Under proofed croissants will leak butter when baking, while as over proofed croissants will collapse before they even reach the oven. The atmosphere for the proofing should be humid and between 25-27*C in temperature (Any warmer than 28*C, and your butter will melt and leak out through the layers.). To achieve the humid environment your best shot is to place a pot of hot water under the tray. To achieve the closest to ideal temperature I like placing them in the turned off oven with the light switched on.

Egg wash:

Atypically to some, I prefer giving the croissants egg wash twice. Once before proofing and once before baking. The first layer of egg wash is applied before proofing to prevent the skin from drying out. You could cover the top of the tray with cling film but that just makes for caution of sticking to the croissants. The second egg wash is applied right before baking for extra shine and color of the baked croissant. But be careful as to not coat the layers, as the eggs would seal the layers preventing them from expanding correctly during baking.

Baking:

Every house oven behaves differently so every home baker has it’s own temperature setup for each recipe. However, following what most suits you keep in mind that greater temperature ensures a greater oven spring (rise during first minutes of baking.) but on the other hand, due to high sugar amounts in the dough, keeping them on high temperature for long would make them brown too quick. What works best for me is to bake them at 190*C for just two minutes, then lower the heat down to 160*C until fully baked.

The croissants are best enjoyed 30 minutes post baking!

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  • Prep time: 72 hours
  • Cook time: 20 minutes
  • Total time: 72 hours 20 minutes
  • Serves: 12 large croissants

Ingredients

For the croissants

  • 350 gr manitoba flour
  • 150 gr strong flour
  • 260 ml water
  • 12 gr salt
  • 40 gr granulated sugar
  • 13 gr instant dry yeast, 30gr if using fresh yeast
  • 50 gr room temp butter
  • 1 egg for eggwash

For the butter tourage:

  • 250 gr butter

Method

For the croissant dough:

  • 1)

    Start by preparing your dough. Place all your dough ingredients, except the butter in a large mixing bowl.

  • 2)

    Mix on medium speed with a dough hook until all the ingredients come together, then add butter and mix for 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth, elastic and peeling off the sides. (No need to work the dough too much as if making bread, the gluten will additionally be stressed during lamination.)

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    Do not be discouraged to knead by hand if that’s your alternative, it doesn’t take much, if any longer :

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  • 3)

    Once your dough is smooth and elastic, wrap it with cling film and refrigerate for 24 hours.

For the butter tourage:

  • 1)

    Since you have plenty of time between the resting and the laminating, time to make the butter tourage.

  • 2)

    Take a piece of parchment paper and draw a 15x15cm rectangle in the middle, flip the parchment paper with the ink facing down and start adding your butter.

  • 3)

    If your butter comes in a standardized brick shape, slice out even pieces and place inside the rectangle to fit.

    (If you look closely, in this photo I used the butter warned in the introduction and failed miserably)

  • 4)

    Now cover with another piece of parchment paper and roll with a rolling pin to make an even layer of butter. Make sure the texture is consistent else the butter may break.

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    .

  • 5)

    Once your butter is rolled out to an even layer, tuck the edges in to reshape the rectangle.

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  • 6)

    Store the tourage as per lamination needs.

Laminating the dough:

  • 1)

    The first and foremost rule for dough laminating is achieving the same consistency for both the dough and butter. If your butter is too cold, it will break into pieces while laminating and greatly alter the texture. If your butter is too warm it will melt into the dough thus preventing individual layers formation. If you’re feeling fancy, before laminating dough should be at around 4*C while the butter should be 14-16*C, but I’d rather you go for the feel. Take your dough in one hand and the butter in other, start folding them and if they feel the same while folding you’re ready.

  • 2)

    Now that we got the consistency sorted out, let’s take our dough and the butter tourage out of the fridge.(Or what ever amount of time is necessary to bring the butter to pliable consistency.)

  • 3)

    Poke the dough with a skewer a few times and press down to deflate.

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  • 4)

    Now roll your dough out to a 30x30cm rectangle, to get those sharp rectangular edges, roll the corners out diagonally.

  • 5)

    Place your rolled dough onto a tray aligned with parchment paper and place inside a freezer for 40 minutes. (This will allow the dough to be as cold as possible which will make lamination easier, will allow you to laminate both folds at once, and also tightens the gluten preventing unwanted rising during lamination.)

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  • 6)

    Place your stone-cold dough onto your lightly floured work surface and place the butter tourage in the center and enclose the butter inside the dough like an envelope as shown in the video.

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  • 7)

    Starting from the bottom and working upward, tap down the dough with a rolling pin. This is crucial to ensure the butter get distributed in between the sheets of dough evenly throughout.

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  • 8)

    Now, applying pressure only in upwards direction, start rolling the dough out evenly as you can until reaching about 50cm in length. Then fold the first end of the dough 2/3 of the way up and fold the second end to overlap the first fold. (double turn)

  • 9)

    Now using the same method as above, start by tapping down the dough again pre rolling and roll out into a 60x25cm rectangle. Once rolled out, fold into thirds (Single turn).

  • 10)

    Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for another 24hours.

  • 11)

    After 24 hours, place the dough onto a lightly floured worksurface, let rest for 10 minutes and roll out into a 60x25cm(x4-5mm thick) square, again using the same method as previously. (Poke the dough again to deflate a bit)

  • 12)

    Trim out all the excess edges to make a decent rectangular shape.

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  • 13)

    Cut out 10-12cm wide triangles using the first as a mold for the pattern. (make a 10-12cm cut from the edge along the top side and a 5-6cm cut from the edge from the bottom side and just connect the dots with a large sharp knife.)

  • 14)

    Now stretch the triangles as far as you can without tearing them and dust off any excess flour.

    Roll the triangles out starting from the wide angle making sure that the narrow tip is on the bottom, else it will open during baking.

  • 15)

    Place the rolled croissants onto a baking tray aligned with parchment paper and coat with egg wash.

  • 16)

    Proof the croissants in a turned off oven with the door ajar and a pot of hot water under the tray for about 2 hours. (Make sure that at no time the temperature exceeds 28*C as the butter will melt and leak out.)

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  • 17)

    When fully proofed, they should be doubled in sized and jiggly when shaken. (Do not bake until these parameters are achieved as baking under proofed croissants will make the butter leak out during baking.)

  • 18)

    Give the croissants a second egg wash and place in the center of a 190*C pre heated oven for 2 minutes, then lower the temperature to 160*C for 15minutes or until beautifully golden brown.

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