February 15, 2015
Rob
8

Recipe: Croissants

You just need to hear the word “croissants” and suddenly you’re mentally transported into a lazy morning in Paris, sitting at the small table of a bistrot with an accordion playing in the background.

Recipe-Croissants-01

Unless you already live in France: in that case you can just find croissants every day at every time and in every single bakery throughout the country! 😛

But… if you don’t live in France and can’t find good croissants anywhere, you now have a way to enjoy one of the best French pastries: just make them at home with this great step-by-step recipe! 🙂

Home-made croissant dough is a bit challenging, but not impossible to make. You just need a bit of patience and some care during the folding process (read the linked article for more details). The rolling of croissant is the most difficult part at the beginning, just keep on practicing!

croissant-dough-shaped

In this post, I will explain how to portion and shape croissants. I’m not 100% satisfied yet with their looks, but they taste heavenly! 😛

 

Unfortunately, I find it quite hard to have croissants on a weekday morning because you have to shape them, let them proof for 2 hours at room temperature then let them cool down before eating: way too much time for some guy who always gets up late for work like me! 🙂

The best alternative I found is freezing baked croissants and warming them up for breakfast: it still takes around 30 minutes before I am able to eat them, but at least I can start the day in a sweet way! 🙂

Recipe-Croissants-02

Note: the official solution proposed by my book by Christophe Felder is to freeze the croissants after proofing, but for me the result was not very good… let me know what your preferred solution is!

 

Croissants

Print recipe

Ingredients

Dough

1kgCroissant dough

Egg wash

1Egg
1Egg yolk

Directions

1
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the croissant dough horizontally and vertically in order to get a 4mm high rectangle, around 50cm wide and 40cm high
2
Cut two horizontal stripes, around 20cm high and trim the borders if needed
3
Measure the base of triangles to cut using a dough cutter (~11-12cm)
4
Cut triangles using a long knife or a pizza wheel (the tip of the triangle should be in line with the midpoint of the base). You should ideally get 5+5 triangles per stripe.
5
If needed, you can store the triangles for some time in the fridge one on top of the other
6
When ready, crush the tip on the work surface (so that it sticks) then "pull" the base of the triangle gently towards you so that it becomes slightly longer
7
Using a dough cutter or a knife, perform a 2cm cut in the midpoint of the base of the triangle and slightly pull the two base corners apart
8
Start rolling the croissant from the base using both your hands: first fold the base gently...
9
...then move your fingers towards the tip to roll completely a croissant (both hands should move together and the external fingers should gently press so that the "horns" of the croissants are not too big).
10
If you prefer, you can give the croissant the standard "horned" shape, (keep in mind they will keep on rising before baking)
11
Place the croissants with the seal facing down on a parchment-lined pan (keep them well separated) and brush with the beaten egg and egg yolk
12
Let the shaped croissants proof at room temperature for around 2 hours
13
Brush again with the egg wash then bake immediately in a preheated oven at 180°C for around 13-15 minutes. Cool down completely before serving.

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