Croissants seem like a really big challenge. The most difficult part seems like forming the butter into a dough like layer and folding into the rolled out dough. Performing the folds to get all the layers of dough and butter laminated seems difficult. Sounds like hitting the dough with a rolling pin to help flatten out the dough helps to get even layers. I froze the croissants after forming and they came out nicely a week later. I may try to bake 4 immediately and freeze the other four next time. The process was time consuming but the croissants tasted great and were very flakey and buttery. I used a European butter hearing they roll out easier.
Claire Saffitz on youtube
(recipe)[recipe https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1022053-croissants?smid=yt-nytfood&smtyp=cur]
Ingredients
dough
- 605g (4 2/3c) flour
- 66g (1/3c) granulated sugar
- 1T plus 2t kosher salt
- 7g (2 1/4t) active dry yeast
- 214g (3/4c + 2T) water
- 120g (1/2c) whole milk
- 57g (1/4c) unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch cubes
butter block
- 340g (1 1/2c) european butter
- flour for dusting
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1T heavy cream
Steps
day 1
- with dough hook mix flour, sugar, salt, yeast, mix until combined
- add water, milk into well
- mix until comes together about 5m
- rest for 10m
- add butter pieces, mix 8-10m
- cut two slashes forming +
- let rise 45m to 1h, about 1.5 times original size
- chill in fridge 2h to 4h, about 2 times original size
- form butter block with parchment paper 8 inches square, pound with rolling pin and press into the square shape, put bake in fridge to let cool for 30m
- take dough out of fridge, deflate and stretch into a rough square around 8-9 inches on one side, freeze for 20m
- roll out dough from fridge into 16 inches by 8 inches
- place butter block on dough
- envelope the butter in the dough, fold over top and bottom to meet in middle
- rotate so seam side is north/south
- beat and roll out to 24 inches long and 1/4 inch thick, lift dough to check is not sticking
- grab short side and fold to middle, fold bottom to middle
- fold in half along the middle, to a book, 4 layers thick
- wrap in plastic and cool in fridge for 1 hour
- beat and roll out to a 14 by 17 inch slab
- fold dough into thirds as an envelope
- cool in freezer for 20m fridge for 1h
- roll out to 14x17
- cut into 4 strips of 4x14 inches, cat square off ends to remove the 1 inch
- cut each 4th into triangles
- roll up into croissants
- froze at this point
- heat cast iron skillet with water until boils
- put in cold oven, add croissants to oven with space to grow
- let proof in cold oven overnight is frozen or 1-2h is fresh
- when proofed turn on oven to 375
- carefully brush croissants with egg wash/milk
- bake 20m, rotate, bake another 10-15 until deeply browned
