Sourdough chocolate croissants meets a repeat springy crew
One of these kids is not like the others one of these kids is doing his own thing (a little sesame street jingle to introduce today's bake models).
Pushing the envelope a bit today after a slight step back last week and learning from mistakes I am finding that a 12% levain build and overall 53% hydration seems to be the sweet spot for croissant spring as today we got some nice flakey and inflated croissants and, ... the addition of a chocolate version which turned out not so bad. I had been thinking about a chocolate croissant where instead of planting a few chips before rolling it would be more interesting to incorporate cocoa into the dough or butter, all in a effort to produce something with visual appeal. I read up on a recipe that used a chocolate butter and wasn't to fond of the photos I saw as this recipe seemed to produce rather ugly mutants with dark butter bleeding everywhere so, instead I decided to use butter slab as normal and then layer in some cocoa between dough layers. After the first fold things looks great and it wasn't until the second and third folds that that the incredible dryness of cocoa proved to complicate lamination - suffice to say it was rather difficult but with enough patience (and speed as we work against the clock and warming dough with laminates). As is quite obvious the chocolate species did not proof nor spring up as high but still had decent structure - I would say much more than the article I read.
So, all in all, happy with the standard variety as they are a positive step in the consistency department and, with he bonus of an interesting chocolate variation - that's a bake that makes ya feel a decent sense of accomplishment :)
Comments
I love pain au chocolat which basically is a croissant with a hunk of chocolate in the middle. I know what those taste like. I am wondering how your version tastes since there doesn't seem to be any sweetener with the cocoa. Did you add sugar to counteract the bitterness of the cocoa?
I am a big fan of pain aux chocolate and usually make a few along with the croissants - actually if i had to choose I'd eat the pistachio versions first then the chocolate and lastly the croissants which even still i usually dip in simple syrup - they are all pretty addicting but some added filling sure does being it all to the next level. As for the cocoa powder versions - if you close your eyes you wouldn't be able to pick them as a 'chocolate' variety - as such there's no bitterness. This was done mostly for aesthetic value and to see how the dough would respond. somehow imagined a more yellow croissant with a darker cross section and all in all was interested to highlight the structure (it's just so cool looking when they open up right)
Lovely crumb. What would have happened if the cocoa was added to the flour as you do when baking a cake?
I'm still afraid of attempting croissants after a total failure several years ago. Butter has become so expensive these days too.
Well done
Leslie
I actually started to consider that since as mentioned this is more an attempt to enhance the visual and architectural aspect that comes with a nicely structured crumb. Right off the bat after this experience I would not do this again since the slippage was intense. Usually as soon as a fold is performed the dough layers bond. With cocoa there is zero bonding and as you roll the layers slide apart and it's really difficult to control. In the second fold I decided to apply a thin layer of simple syrup to the dough then dust with cocoa. That caused the layers to stick better but as soon as pressure was applied with the pin, the syrup leaked and was a bit messy. That made me think about adding cocoa to the dough and I am actually thinking of incorporating some layers as regular dough and some with cocoa. I saw an article where on baker colored some of his dough red and made some beautiful croissants via dough augmentation. He adds just a little red dough to already laminated sheets which results in a really distinct layer without flooding the entire croissant with color and that is sort of what I was envisioning so yeah, you are reading my mind somehow - oh btw you should try again, laminates are almost a guaranteed failure at first, and, I remember the first time i tried puff (long time ago) should have been part of a comedy movie with peter sellers, but, after a few shots it gets easier and a lot of fun. Heres the link to the red rasberry croissants - https://ny.eater.com/2015/9/17/9345675/boulud-chocolate-raspberry-croissant
I love raspberries, love a good croissant (especially a good Swiss one) so putting them together... oh dear I am drooling!
thanks Kendalm, maybe once the summer is over I might have another try.
Leslie
now you can see - I made a regular barch and also made a small batch of dough with a couple of grams of cocoa powder then incorporated a couple of layers of the cocoa dough. The croissants did not come out entirely brown like this batch and had a nice distinct layer however it seems to have caused the layers to fuse or bond and so it didn't have the effect i was hoping for - that is the normal honeycomb with some additional dark layers - it's more like a sort of derranged looking croissant (see the latest post for pictures)