Croissants

[shadowandflame]

I love these. They are a great choice for having people over for brunch or anything like that. :) They're best the first or second day (I haven't yet tried freezing them; usually I just take the leftovers to work and they disappear pretty fast).

They are extra delicious if you give them orange chocolate fillings (just wrap each croissant around a segment from a Terry's Chocolate Orange.)

You need to start the dough the night before, and you'll need to be around for three or four hours so you can roll it out periodically.



1 T active dry yeast
4 C white bread flour
1 1/2 t salt
1/3 C sugar
lukewarm water (maybe a cup or so - enough to make a soft dough)
1 lb + 1/4 C butter (cold)
1 egg, beaten (for eggwash)

Dissolve the yeast in a little water. Mix in the sugar and salt, and add flour and water until it becomes a dough.  Knead.  Refrigerate in a covered bowl for 1 hour.

Roll out on a counter until the sheet of dough is about 2 feet by 1 foot.  Cover two-thirds of the rectangle with sliced butter, like this:
--------------------------
|        |    Butter     |
--------------------------

You should use all of the butter in this step.  Fold the unbuttered layer over so that it covers half of the buttered layer, and then fold again so that all the butter is covered by dough.  Refrigerate, covered, for 1 hour.

Roll out the dough again and repeat the folding process (only without the butter this time).  Repeat the refrigeration and rolling out twice more.  Then let the dough rest in the fridge (covered) overnight.

Roll out the dough until it is about 1/8 inch thick.  (I usually give up before I get all of the dough quite this thin, but that's okay.)  Cut the dough into triangles and roll them up into croissant shapes. Put them on two baking sheets, brush with the eggwash, and then let rise for two hours.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

This makes two crowded baking sheets' worth of croissants - about thirty or forty, or fewer if you make larger croissants. If you make chocolate-filled croissants, you should probably line the baking sheets with tin foil, because the chocolate leaks a bit.

Comments

[nigeltde]

that. sounds. AMAZING.

[shadowandflame]

Hee. I take it you're going to give them a try? You should! :) Do some orange chocolate ones too - those are awesome.

[nigeltde]

They are definitely on my next brunch menu!

[vampwillow]

ooh! thank you. I tend to buy the ready-made-but-not-cooked ones in the fridge cabinets as then I can just decide to have some in a morning when I want, but part of that was that I'd no idea what actually went in to making them. I shall now plan ahead for making them one weekend ;-)

[shadowandflame]

They are actually kind of fun to make. :) Also, they are tastier than the ones from the store - storebought croissants tend to be a bit on the bland side. I make storebought croissants into sandwiches, but I don't do that with these; they are really good by themselves.

[shadowandflame]

(also: much cheaper than storebought ones! At least in terms of money, if not time.)

[aedifica]

Reading that, it sounds remarkably possible. I'll have to give these a try sometime, thank you!

[shadowandflame]

Good luck! I should perhaps also mention that the dough is pretty forgiving about rising times. It's OK to forget about it for a while, or if you're in more of a hurry, I've shortened the rising periods to 45 minutes instead of an hour, and that seems to work fine too.

[aquinasprime]

You are awesome! I was just thinking about attempting croissants again. My first attempt was a failure mainly due to not having a large enough surface to roll them out on. I will be rectifying that situation shortly and i'll be trying this recipe.

[shadowandflame]

I tried making croissants when I was a teenager, and as I recall, that was a failure too. :) I don't remember why. But these seem pretty foolproof, at least for my adult self!

[moonbathe_skin]

wow, the secret of croissants! Shall make soon - yum!!