The time has come!

It started out as a joke, but with my freezer huffing and puffing with baked goods yet again, maybe starting a local facebook-page to get my friends to come by and pick up some croissants isn't such a bad idea after all, now that my 3 glorious weeks (holiday!) of immersing myself in laminated dough have kicked off.

For some crazy reason, don't ask me why, I have started this whole hunt for MY perfect croissant from two extremes of the flour spectrum, working my way to the soft spot that I'm looking for. I've given a dutch patentbloem a spin, because my theory was that it would be closest to the T45 used in France. On the other side I started out with manitoba.

Both bakes were performing way better than anticipated and were both....well..funny. The size and shape of the proofed Manitoba croissant was jaw dropping. Just to give you an idea; I put only 6 croissants on the entire tray, and still they were in each other's way.

The combination patentbloem & Julia Child-formula & Hitz technique turned out to be a good laugh. A short mix on low gluten with 100% butter, go figure! I haven't been to Hawaï, but the inside of my oven, with crispy volcanos oozing creamy lava into a yellow sea...did somehow provoke an association., even though the colors were a bit off. And you know what? Even though the second batch was superior in all the fields respected by us (home) bakers, I secretely like my croissant just the way they turned out; buttery bottom, crispy top and slightly caved in, or even, yes why not, fully exploded!

Alas, no pictures to show, because both batches were out the door before I had the chance. Well..only a few "ugly" ones remained behind. The baker's fate!

I'm going to continue my croissant quest with a visit to Paris. No idea what I'll do besides lurking around all the best bakeries until deep into the night, but that's the idea.. I guess.

I hope posting here with all the mobile tech stuff proves to be as much of a breeze as it always is and  in case I turn silent, you can probably find me here.

Today I did my first radio interview for the BreadLab. I was surprized, and hadn't counted on media response that soon. It went well!

All of you out there, thank you! You are  a great help and inspiration. And Floyd (if you're out there..lol); thank you for this wonderful site!

Freerk

 P.S. You would do me a big favor endorsing my BreadLab iniative. Every "like" will get me closer to realizing a 6 episode documentary/road movie; chasing the best bread Europe has to offer. Thanks in advance!

Hi Everyone,

Last year I saw a video for laminating dough using cream cheese instead of butter!  I can't find the link to the video but will keep searching.  Has anyone heard of laminating with cream cheese and if it actually works?

Might have been mascarpone, not sure.

There was a bit of frost on the grass here in Pretoria overnight and the temperature inside the house at 6:30 this morning was a bracing 55ºF.  By 3:30 this afternoon, the indoor temperature had rocketed all the way up to 57ºF!  Another day or two of this and the granite counter tops in the kitchen should be chilled enough to handle laminated doughs with no risk of butter breakouts.  That, of course, assumes that the butter block is soft enough to be malleable.  I may have to set it out in the sun for a few minutes...

Paul

That is ,If My first attempt did yield anything close to a croissant. I Was inspired by Akiko's Post here about her great croissants adapted from Steve's Great website: Breadcetera, and i had to try my luck at croissants.

 This time, i have managed to retain the butter in the layers in the oven, and not ending up with a puddle of molten butter. The Dough lamination went on smoothly, But I had to let the dough chill in the freezer for 25 minutes per session instead of the fridge, due to my warm kitchen.

Chilling my dough in the freezer lead to a prolonged final proof (3 hours), which were not enough. I was too scared to allow the dough ferment in my warmer kitchen, as the butter may melt.

Finally, i actually had Croissants, with Butter in them, and a lovely flaky texture, though not as airy as Akiko Croissants, But Considerably light.

We just returned from vacation and our resort had a great breakfast buffet each morning.  We all ate at least one croissant every day.  They were pretty good, but they were quite small and never fully baked IMHO.  When it comes to baking laminated doughs my advice always is that when you think it's done, bake it some more.  I find most home bakers seem afraid to fully bake tarts and pastries and they end up with pallid results, then wonder why their attempts are not as good as what they get at fine bakeries and restaurants.  It's particularly important to fully bake laminated doughs because they have so many layers of dough and butter.

When we returned home, after unpacking I immediately fed my sourdough starter, but instead of baking bread I decided it had been too long since I last made croissants.  I remembered that Jeffery Hamelman did a croissant article for Fine Cooking magazine some years ago so I dug out the issue and got started.  I used KA AP flour and Plugra unsalted butter.  I find the European style butters give much better results in baking.  Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the lamination process, but I did manage to take pictures right after I formed the croissants.

After first egg wash and start of final proofing

Un-proofed

Fully proofed two hours later

Applying second egg wash right before baking

20 minutes on convection at 400 F

Fully baked :)

These are the best croissants I've ever baked.

Question: In the Julia Child-video for making croissants, Esther (the french lady who does the baking in the video) wraps her dough very tightly in cling film before she puts the fridge to rise.

I'm doing the same thing when making croissants, but I actually have no clue what this does to the process. It feels counter intuitive somehow: why am I not giving this dough all the room it wants and needs to grow?

The dough grows, thus rises, despite the restraint of the cling film, but I can't help thinking: is it better to just leave it to rise freely? Does any one here know why she does this?

I have noticed (or maybe I'm just imagining things...) that upon rolling out the dough (that rested in tight cling film) it feels rather resistant, almost overdeveloped, even though I have not been kneading the dough to a point where it could be overworked.

If any of you guys can shed your light on this would be grateful!

thanks

Freerk

If you do, please tell us!?!

Well, I know it seems like 'easy croissants' is an oxymoron, but I know there must be a modernized and updated and excellent recipe around that some talented 'myth buster' baker has developed!

I have tried Julia Child's Recipes, Zojirushi Bread Machine Recipe, looked at REinhardt's, and You-tube, etc., and have reached the conclusion that there are a million different ways to make croissants, so I wonder if anyone has done a real analysis of what exactly you have to do to make a delicious croissant, and what steps you can minimize or leave out completely.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks.  J.

I just finished making croissant dough for the very first time with information I could find on the internet. Wow. Making croissant dough is tough, and I'm still I'm not sure I did it correctly. What I just made tastes good, though it's reminiscent of a bread-child between a buttermilk biscuit and a croissant.

I regret leaving them in the refrigerator overnight after folding the dough, I should've let them rise to something larger. Also I think I put too much milk in them and didn't kneed the dough as much as I should have done. They're tasty, surprisingly! I am absolutely shocked they turned out edible and that those 17 hours of creation, refrigeration and proofing didn't go to waste!  

I combined a few recipes posted on these forums to create this Frankenstein deliciousness (Croissants, but with more milk than originally planned):

I put some almond paste in these (Same dough):

I haven't tried the bear claws yet, I'm too excited that I didn't burn them to oblivion, or that they're not hard as rocks that I had to post this and share these creations to the world. Also, I'm sure the almond paste filling resembles a hot lava that would scorch the tongue for at least the next 20 minutes.

Hooray!

Tips? Thoughts?

*Just realized I should post this as a blog.

I just finished making croissant dough for the very first time with information I could find on the internet. Wow. Making croissant dough is tough, and I'm still I'm not sure I did it correctly. What I just made tastes good, though it's reminiscent of a bread-child between a buttermilk biscuit and a croissant.

I regret leaving them in the refrigerator overnight after folding the dough, I should've let them rise to something larger. Also I think I put too much milk in them and didn't kneed the dough as much as I should have done. They're tasty, surprisingly! I am absolutely shocked they turned out edible and that those 17 hours of creation, refrigeration and proofing didn't go to waste!  

I combined a few recipes posted on these forums to create this Frankenstein deliciousness (Croissants, but with more milk than originally planned):

I put some almond paste in these (Same dough):

I haven't tried the bear claws yet, I'm too excited that I didn't burn them to oblivion, or that they're not hard as rocks that I had to post this and share these creations to the world. Also, I'm sure the almond paste filling resembles a hot lava that would scorch the tongue for at least the next 20 minutes.

Hooray!

Tips? Thoughts?

In Quebec the one thing I'm always really looking forward to is, of course, French cuisine. For our daughter's graduation in Montreal we put up in a fairly nice hotel near campus, and went down for breakfast with pleasant expectations.

Heading straight for the croissants I noticed their lack of crispness, cold and tired they were sitting in the display. Well, there was the toaster, and innocently pretending not to understand the warning: "Pas des croissants" ("Nix comprengg!") I revived my lackluster pastry (no smoke alarm).

Back at our table I garnished my croissant with some butter and jam and took my first bite. At once red lights started flashing as my taste buds yelled: "Beware of cardboard!!!" In utter disbelief I took a second bite, and there it was - a total blandness and the faint but unmistakable taste of shortening!

In two days we will be home in Maine, and next time we visit Portland we will go to our favorite breakfast place: "Mornings in Paris", where they have the most wonderful, buttery, crisp croissants...