Croissants
I've made a single batch of croissants numerous times before and keep trying to perfect them but was curious if anyone had suggestions to help! The croissants have good flavor, good rise, and good color but I'd love to see them rise even more and have more cavities. They are still a bit tight after baking. I'm just in a home kitchen so I'm unsure if it's the butter (Kerrygold), lack of rise time (3 hours....though I don't have a proofing oven), oven temp (350 degrees Fahrenheit), or lack of tightness when I roll them. They cook through and have really nice layers of dough but I'd like to see some air pockets get in even deeper to the inside of the croissant to rise even more. Does anyone have any ideas? Thank you so much! I'm excited to learn.
350F sounds low to me. I bake mine at 380 with convection.
I followed the Bake from Scratch croissant recipe. I didn't add any humidity to my oven to proof them....has anyone tried this? ....I've been reading a lot and that seems to be a common tip.
Proofing croissants can be really fidgety. If you proof too hot your butter can melt and you can ruin all the layers you've worked so hard to make. I've used Kerrygold butter to make croissants before and it performs really nicely. It has a really nice malleability to it that makes it unlikely to shatter your butter block. Humidity is nice as it prevents your surface from drying, another thing you can do is do an egg wash prior to proofing to help keep the surface moist and then egg wash it again before bake.
Search out the posts (they're pretty old now) by Txfarmer about croissants on this site and there is a bunch of information on croissant making there!