Croissant help
Hello everyone,
I've been making croissants for about 6 months now, and careful and meticulous as I try to go at it, I'm always getting dense croissants.
My croissants always come in 2 variations.
One is a chunky dough where butter has fragmented and not rolled into the dough because it was too cold. These are better.
The others, I let the chill come off the butter for 10 minutes or so before i roll. The dough looks better, i can see the butter/Dough layers looking good. But these croissants come out denser than the others. I can see some layers have been smashed into the butter layer, and those layers are disgusting and doughy tasting.
I'm thinking it comes down to keeping the butter cool but not too cool? The videos I watch the guys just roll it straight from the fridge. Anyone know a secret to getting the butter to the perfect rolling temp?
My two cents:
Get a big rolling pin and beat the dough/butter block with the pin while it is cold. My big breakthrough came when I bought the biggest rolling pin I could find. I have a steel Winco with a 4 inch diameter that cost about $35 on Amazon.
For exact technique, others have elaborated more. I’m sure whoever you are watching is just fine. All recipes I have seen are more or less the same and should work just fine. I make a lot of croissants, and my dough is fairly stiff and quite cold, and I use a lot of butter (approximately 30% butter to dough weight). Whether the butter breaks in the first step or the lamination is perfect, the end result is hardly different, and I have found, despite what many say or think, is that croissants are quite forgiving. What they do not forgive is a warm lamination stage where all the butter melts.
I have made around 100,000 croissants, give or take, in the last 4 years. That is where I am coming from. Good luck, and I hope this helps. The big pin was a life-changer.