November 12, 2012 - 6:26pm
Help! Croissant Advice Needed
Just checking...do I still need to bring my milk temp up to 110 degrees F when using fresh yeast or do you use it cold from the fridge? I warmed it last time and did not have the same results as last year but made other mistakes so not sure if that's why. This is my first season working with fresh yeast. Thanks
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Usually it is specified in the recipe. I.e. recipe tells you what to do with yeast, how to prepare it and mix it into your dough.
For fresh compressed yeast straight from the frigde dissolving it first in liquid with temperature of 85-95F works best. It could be a couple of tablespoons of warm water, just to dissolve the yeast, or all milk from the recipe, etc.
mariana
Thank you Mariana, I'm using the recipe from this video by Esther McManus: http://video.pbs.org/video/2250835454/ she says nothing other than adding the yeast and nothing about the temperature of the milk. I went ahead and added the milk cold, the dough seems to be doing fine.
This has been an adventure as I made 2 batches of croissants last week w/a fresh yeast that had expired by an hour from the date in the wee morning. I think I over rolled & kneaded one batch but they still came out pretty nice after testing a couple, just not as large as I remembered last years for turkey sandwiches so am making a larger croissant to roll and freeze for Thanksgiving.
I'm testing last weeks batch of formed frozen croissants this a.m. Last week I experimented w/the thaw in fridge before proofing in cold oven. Last night I took out frozen and put directly into cold oven over night, I like this method better. Although butter leakage isn't a huge problem, there definately was a little compared to this a.m..
When I sliced my croissant, the holes are all there nicely but overall it looks a little underdone. Should I simply bake them a little longer or is this an outcome from over folding the batch? I rolled & folded them 4 times vs 3. Last time, it was done but there was a line that seemed to be underdone, that could be because with that batch, I'd rolled & foled the 4th time, then remembered it needed to be a wallet, rolled and folded into a wallet without a rest in between. I think that's the layer that was a little underdone.
Thank you!
Baking time takes me about almost 30 minutes, for a croissant whose isosceles triangle is about 4" x 8". I don't egg wash them because it tends to brown them too early. I leave the croissants un-eggwashed. The initial baking time is about 425 F to 450 F for 5 minutes. And then I lower the temperature to 350 F and bake for the rest of the 20 to 25 minutes.
Lower the temperature and bake longer, so the center is thoroughly baked. If it's underdone in the center, the croissant ends up collapsing. I had that happen before when it's underbaked at the center; the croissants end up deflating. Also make sure to allow the croissants to cool before cutting into them.