Croissants

Croissants are all about finesse and working with fragile sheets of high-hydration dough and lots of butter. Bakeries usually use special (and expensive) devices to roll out the dough. I've made them by hand many times with various degrees of success and I'm still refining my technique.

I used to have three different recipes/procedures here but I think this is one that works the best. It's still a work in progress.

Incidentally this is the same recipe as puff pastry. The difference is croissant dough includes yeast and puff pastry does not.

Total Preparation Time

Total preparation time depends on the method and ranges from 12-24 hours

Mixing - 10min
Rolling out - 30min
Folding and shaping - 10-90min
Resting - 4-12 hours
Baking - 20min

Ingredients

Beurrage (roux):

Unsalted butter - 226-339g (4-6 sticks, 2-3 cups)
Flour - 112g-160g (0.66-1 cups)

Détrempe:

Flour - 4 cups (1000ml)
Butter (room temperature) - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 tablespoon (15ml)
Salt - 2 teaspoons (10ml)
White vinegar - 1 tablespoon (15ml)
Cold water - 1 cup (250ml)
Egg yolk

Method

Yet another method:

Make the roux with butter and flour
Make the dough and mix thoroughly
Spread the roux over the dough and fold into thirds. (3 layers of butter)
Rotate 90 degrees and fold in thirds (9 layers)
Make sure to brush flour from the touching surfaces before folding
Rotate 90 degrees and fold in thirds (27 layers)
Rotate 90 degrees and fold in thirds (81 layers)
Rotate 90 degrees and fold in thirds (243 layers)
Rotate 90 degrees and fold in thirds (729 layers)
If you want the layers extra delicate rotate 90 degrees and fold in thirds (2187 layers)
Refrigerate for 30min or so between folds, you want the dough to be stiff when you start rolling!

# For croissants, cut the dough into triangles and roll from the wide end to the pointy end. # Bake at 420F (215C) for ~20min

Notes

Using a roux is easier than raw buffer
Don't chill the roux separate from the dough, it makes a hard crust that won't integrate into the dough
Aim more towards a 6"x20" square rather than a 12"x10" square. More rolls adds layers but makes the croissants too big.
Margarine might be easier to work than butter
Nutella filling works well but jam will leak out and burn on the pan
Just putting a flat square with a dollop of cream cheese+sugar and some fruit in the center is delicious. The pastry will puff up around the filling making a fruit danish cup.