January 16, 2015 - 5:11am
croissant crisis
For weeks I have been trying to make the perfect croissant. (open honey comb, thin wall, crispy flaky) I have been using the following recipe by Thomas Keller:
Poolish
50 G ap flour
yeast
50 G Water
mix everything together and leave at room temp overnight. (approximately 25-26C)
250 G ap flour
5 G dry yeast
37 G sugar
100 G water
50 G butter
155 G roll in butter
Mix everything along with the poolish for 20 minutes.
Rest at room temp 1 hour or until double in size.
Pat down to form rectangle chill for 20 mins.
Do 3 turns.
Proof.
Bake
at 200 for 20 mins
first batch
second batch
I am not totally with the results. It looks and tastes like a croissant but still was not what i aim for.How do I get the comb to be more open and the walls to be thinner?For me, the first batch actually looks better. The comb of the 2nd batch was smaller. The second batch is very dense and bread like. I have read that the bulk rise at room temp before roll in the butter should be avoided if you do not want bread like texture. How do I improve my work? Please help....
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thank you so much for your comment. I thought my butter was leaking when i heard something split but when i check there are no leak outside (maybe on the inside) or maybe the butter has incorperated into the dough.
Proofing might be an issue but it is unlikely unless you are proofing pretty hot (85-90F+)
It likely has to do with the folds. The butter -and- the dough need to be chilled, ideally the same cold temp. If your butter if room temp or might be in that range, then your butter will start to melt and incorperate into the dough. You want the butter solid and creating layers between the dough when you fold. However, too solid can be hard to work with by hand and you might tear/rip the dough. Having high quality butter with a good amount of fat in it helps a ton with this (higher quality butter is much softer when cold). Also make sure you shape your butter into a large, semi-flat rectangular shape before you start folding it into the dough, and then once you do that chill it so it gets back to a cold temp. Once the butter has already been shaped and folded, you make it much more malleable which means you can fold it into the dough without the butter or the dough breaking as easily and yet still have both be cold.
When making folds/turns it might help as well to refrigerate for 20-30 minutes between folds. If the process takes a while, then the butter might start to melt as you fold. The point is, you want to keep things chilled and at the same temperature when you work with it. If you do it right (and quickly enough) you should get the layers. If layers are visible but you still get this problem then you might be either working the dough too hard (try and flatten it out a few CM at a time) or its a proofing issue.
Also, maybe that time/heat on cook is either too low or too high. What the butter does is create layers through steam when you actually bake. If you are baking at 200F for 20 minutes, that is a bit low of a temp and might not be enough to make the "steam magic" happen. If you mean 200C (which is closer to 390F) then that should be hot enough.
After mixing the dough, I think it's better to chill the dough for 15 to 30 minutes. Don't do bulk fermentation at room temperature. I think bulk fermentation makes the dough a little more wet causing the layers to stick together when it's proofed. Make sure to roll the dough thinly, like 3 to 4 mm. If the dough is too thick, the butter is going to leak during the baking.
I have learned a great deal from reading the blog of Baking Fanatic (should come up if you google it). He has very detailed instructions and look-fors for many breads and baked goodies, and how to prevent and/or remedy doughs that have gone wild. Check out the 'Master Classes' section. I believe he is a member of TFL as well.