Croissant

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Makes 12 or 8. Takes 2 days. 🔒

I usually make 8. You can make them smaller but they'll be harder to roll. 10 cm short edge x 30 cm long edge works  well.

Ingredients

Quantity > 12 8
Water 300 gm (60% hyd) 150 gm (60% hyd)
Yeast 10-12 gm 5 gm
White flour 500 gm 250 gm
Milk powder 10 gm 5 gm
Salt 10 gm 5 gm
Caster sugar 50 gm 25 gm
Unsalted butter (dough) 100 gm 50 gm
Unsalted butter (lamination) 250 gm 125 gm

General info

  • The are not as nice with Lurpak butter, avoid if possible.
  • Butter temperature for lamination should be 14-18 C.
  • Butter should be minimum 82% butter fat (Western Star is 80% and it's fine).
  • Flour should have 11-11.5% protein (Mine is 12%).
  • Salt gives strength to gluten, provide yeast control and flavour).
  • Milk powder enhances flavour, relaxes gluten).
  • Butter adds extensibility, like lubricant to gluten).
  • When glazing, you can be generous if using milk. If using egg, start in centre, and brush toward ends, you don't want to get it in corners as it can affect rise.

Day 1

Kit

  • 2.4 ltr bowl. Can use smaller one???
  • Small Jack scraper.
  • Freezer bag (re-use on day 2).
  • Usual bits.

Make dough

Method

The liquid needs to be at the right temperature which helps achieve the DDT (Desired Dough Temperature).

DDT for dough: 24-26 C.

There's a formula to get DDT (below) but I don't find it that useful. On a 24 C day, I heated water to 35 C, after 10 mins of kneading the temp was 24 C so it's a crock. If I followed the formula my water should have been warmed to 28 C, that's 7 C less!

Anyway, here's the formula:

(DDT x 2) - ambient temp.

For example, if it's 18 C ambient temp and you want the dough (after kneading) to be 26 C it's:

(26 x 2) - 18 = 34...so the liquid needs to be warmed to 34 C.

If liquid is above 35 C, combine yeast with flour instead of dissolving in liquid. I think this is because if it's too hot it affects the yeast.

  1. Room temp the butter (20 C), do early.
  2. Add flour, caster sugar, salt, milk powder and butter to bowl and mix.
  3. Warm liquid to 35 C.
  4. Add yeast to liquid and stir with fork.
  5. Squish butter into flour.
  6. Add liquid to bowl and mix for 2 mins.
  7. On bench, Knead for ~10 mins.
  8. Check dough temp, hopefully it's ~24-26 C.
  9. Shape into ball and put in bowl.
  10. Spray with water, cover with freezer bag and leave out until it's ~3 times bigger.
  11. Spray water again if needed, fridge overnight.

Day 2

Takes ~7 hours, start as early as possible.

Kit

  • Big and small knives, sharpen them.
  • Rolling pin.
  • Freezer bag cut on both sides.
  • 2 small baking trays.
  • Usual bits.

Make butter block

  1. Grab a piece of baking paper to fit baking pan.
  2. Fold into 15 cm x 10 cm. (I'm still fine-tuning this).
  3. Put butter in middle in tower form.
  4. Fold baking paper as best you can and bash it down.
  5. As it gets smaller, fold paper in along fold lines and tuck under.
  6. Roll the butter evenly into corners.
  7. It will expand to ~18 cm x 11 cm like this:

3 lock-in

  1. Butter should be ~17 C. If it's too cold it splits.
  2. Flour bench.
  3. Roll dough into rectangle twice as big as butter. I'm still struggling with this, need practice.








4 fold (offset book fold)

  1. Roll with the seam to 4 mm.
  2. Cut off ends for clean edge.
  3. Fold ~1/3 in, place strips next to it, fold long end in to meet edges then fold whole thing over again.
  4. Cut sides to release tension.
  5. Rotate dough 90 degrees.
  6. Flatten to ~15 mm.
  7. Cover with freezer bag, in freezer 15 mins or fridge 45 mins.

Simple fold - (final fold)

  1. Take out of fridge and roll in the same direction as before to ~5 mm.
  2. Do final simple fold.
  3. Cut sides to release tension.
  4. Rotate dough 90 degrees.
  5. Flatten to ~15 mm (you should be able to fit on a tray).
  6. Cover with freezer bag, in freezer 15 mins or fridge 45 mins.

Cut triangles

  1. Flour bench.
  2. Roll in same direction 30 x 40 cm ~ 4 mm thick.
  3. Cut triangles, 10 cm at base, should get 8 (see pic below).
  4. Cover with freezer bag, in freezer 15 mins or fridge 45 mins.






Final shaping

  1. Grab 2 small baking trays.
  2. Grease 1 tray with butter left over from butter block. Put paper on the other tray.
  3. For each croissant:
    1. Brush off excess flour.
    2. Stretch out the base.
    3. Small cut at the the bottom.
    4. Roll into croissant and put on tray (do 4 on each tray, they puff up a lot).

    Proofing

    Proofing temperature is best ~28 C. Any warmer and the butter can melt.
    1. Boil the kettle and fill bottom tray, put thermometer inside.
    2. Wait until it gets < 28 C then add add croissants. Can take ~15 mins.
    3. Proof 2-3 hours.
    4. Do wobble test.

    Baking

    1. Pre-heat oven to 200 C for 25 mins.
    2. Boil kettle and glaze with milk.
    3. Bake with steam 1 min @ 200 C then 20 mins @ 180 C. Keep an eye on it toward end.

    Notes

    16/10/2023

    These are turning out well. I feel the butter block is too small for the dough so next time add another 50 gm.

    23/7/2023

    Followed Richard Bertinet recipe because I didn't have milk powder. They were nice but prefer usual ones, good for backup though.

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