Sourdough croissants and less buttery last next time
So I have never been able to eat croissants, due to an egg allergy and being relatively new to baking (3 months or so) I have been concentrating on various Sourdough recipes.
This time I thought I'd give Sourdough croissants a go. This was mainly due to curiosity as I would like to try one (after 35 years of not).
Plus my last foray in to cake/pastry was a massive failure (although this was 10 years ago).
These took me around 2-3 days I started Sunday evening making the dough and baked this morning for my girlfriend set off on a long drive.
I went for mini-croissants about 15 cm long when I made them, with a 1/4 Rye starter and a milk wash (as opposed to egg)
Overall I was pretty pleased, it is my first go at pastry and especially pastry I have made myself, although I found the taste very buttery and a bit too rich for my liking. My girlfriend said they tasted very good and the texture was correct.
My main questions is: "if I use less butter for lamination, to reduce the buttery taste), will this affect the layering and how should I adjust my technique to compensate?"
I have to say that I really am enjoying baking a lot these days!
replacing some of the butter with a different fat such as shortening or lard, although it might change the overall melting point of the fat layer in your dough and make it harder to work with.
I have a recipe that calls for almond paste to be mixed into the butter before you form the block that gets folded in. It does reduce the buttery richness somewhat, but of course makes them taste much sweeter. Also the sugar in the almond paste has an opposite effect from the fat, so they don't have as delicate layers as an all-fat recipe.
--Mike