Croissants needs help !
There friends,
Since few days, my croissant and pains au chocolat are looking so bad..... Look like heavy and dense without sheet layers. I can't
understand what happens. Have a look at the end of this post, you will understand perfectly !
There is my recipe and method :
1. Recipe
Flour : 14 kg
Sugar : 1.6 kg
Dry yeast : 335 g.(2.4 %)
Milk powder : 650 g.
Salt : 280 g.
Fermented dough : 1.3 kg
Butter : 700 g.
Water : 8 L
2. Method
Mixing : 7 min
Ambiant Proofing in the lab : 45 min
Cooling in the fridge all night at 4 degrees.
3. Sheeter
2 double folds with rest time in fridge (30 min) and freezer (30 min) beetwen each fold.
Another rest time, and i roll them and put them in the freezer.
4. Proofing
After a night in the fridge, i let them proof for 3 hours.
Thanks for you help
Alex
How much fold-in butter are you using, and what is the fat content of the butter?
Hi,
I'm doing 2 double folds and using 625 g of butter par 2.5 kg of dough. Is it enough ?
Thanks,
Alex
Yes, that should be enough fold-in butter, but you can increase it to 30% of dough weight if you want. Have you changed any other variables, such as:
-the type of butter
-the type of flour
-final proofing temperature
3 hours does seem like a pretty short time to proof after coming out of the fridge. Is the ambient temperature usually very warm?
I'm using a pastry butter with more fat than usually with a traditionnal flour called Spring Patent. The temperature before the rest in fridge is 21.5. In the morning, the proofing can
reach easily 29.
After 3 hours, it double in size. It's coming fatty.....
Sounds from your post that this is a new problem? If so, what's changed?
Definetely... nothing change except the man on the job. We had this problem when we started, and it goes after a time...
Looking at the pic the layers in the dough seem kinda thick. Either the layers are breaking down during the rolling or all the folds are not being completed. You said nothing has changed except the guy on the job. Are you sure he is doing all the laminations.
Hi Alex,
You don.t need more butter; you may be able to get away using a bit less.
Your process looks good, and the area I would look at first is the laminating. Personally I prefer to use 4 half turns rather than 2 book-folds. I think you may need to rest longer between the turns. Staff training might be necessary.
Best wishes
Andy
For a batch using 14k flour we would use 7k butter in the "beurrage" stage. I noticed that you mention beurrage at the rate of 625 per 2.5k. You can double it easily.
Speaking of beurrage, it would seem like either you don't have enough laminations or the layers are getting squished into one (butter too soft?.) Cut a chunk off your next batch, with a sharp knife not a bench scraper, and check the layers. There should be oodles of alternating dough and butter layers that are more or less equal in thickness.
Another thought, I also use two double folds, but sometimes the dough refuses to cooperate so I toss in a single as well. Trouble is that two doubles do not make 4 folds, but closer to the equivalent of three (which is what you want anyway), but not in the same manner as three singles. During your proof, is there any butter leakage? If so, go back to basics and do three singles. With your sheeter you should easily be able to go: Butter lock-in -> First fold ->Refrigerate 30 min -> second fold -> third fold -> proof.
Cheers
This is what PastryPaul is referring to "Cut a chunk off your next batch, with a sharp knife not a bench scraper, and check the layers. There should be oodles of alternating dough and butter layers that are more or less equal in thickness."
You should be able to see if the laminating is done properly before anything is baked.
-Mark
Is that croissant or puff?
P
It's croissant dough. I do three tri-folds, so technically you should see see 27 layers of butter, right? I think I can't quite see that many but pretty close anyway.
-Mark
Paul, the ratio Alex refers to is butter to dough, not to flour. If you total up the butter used in laminating plus what goes into the dough, the butter ratio to flour is approximately 50%. So the current formula is fine; doubling the butter means full puff, that advice is not right.
I'm interested in what FlourChild is noting below about the freezing part. I think we are all on the same page here. The fault is in the laminating stage and you are right to point out that all the laminations have been lost...but it's down to poor techniques, not fat ratios.
Best wishes
Andy
Two thoughts:
First, the melting point of butter is 30-35C, is it possible that your final proof is too warm and melting the butter into the dough?
Second, I wonder about resting the dough between folds- you list the process as half and hour in the fridge followed by half an hour in the freezer- could it be that the freezer is making the butter so cold that it shatters when it is rolled, instead of forming thin layers?
Thanks to everyone for your precious comments and help.
I really appreciate !
Alex