Monday, September 26, 2011

Croissants


I thought croissants would be more difficult to make. But, if you've made puff pastry, croissants are just "baby" puff pastries with fewer turns and a rest in the refrigerator overnight. Still, I need to practice to get the perfect croissant and attain the flakiness that you get with a Parisien croissant.

My standards for croissants are high: I expect a rich, golden, crinkly surface; I expect it to explode (quietly) when bitten into; and I expect every crumb to be loaded with butter.
- Pam Frier, Times Columnist


Recipe for Croissants

Makes 12-16


1 pound all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 ounce fresh yeast or 1/4 ounce dried yeast
1 1/3 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten


[You can find the recipe for Croissants in the book Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook Home Collection.] You can watch this video to see the method: How to Make Croissants.

Tasting Notes
With all that butter and fresh dough, what's not to love about these croissants. I will keep practicing and aim for crumb-explosion perfection.

Croissant in Paris


Next Time
Brioche in Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook Home Collection page 430

Links
Food Timeline's Croissant History
Times Colonist: To bake or to buy tender, flaky croissants?

Croissant in Paris


::Whisk::
I'm baking my way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, I try to find a suitable substitution.


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    4 comments:

    Unknown said...

    Hmm...I have only tried making croissants once but they didn't work out that great. The only 2 ingredients in the puff pastry dough were butter and flour so it yielded a very dense, heavy final product. Maybe it wasn't laminated enough but I think adding the eggs and yeast would definitely help. Thanks for the recipe.

    Mardi Michels said...

    These look pretty darned good to me! The only time I have ever made croissants was at a class at Ecole LenĂ´tre in Paris. It was so much work and enough to convince me that I am happy to pay whatever is costs to buy decent croissants in Toronto!

    Holiday Baker Man said...

    I'm making these on Sunday!

    Shari@Whisk: a food blog said...

    the starving student - you're right. Puff pastry doesn't have yeast, which makes it more difficult to make!

    Mardi - Ooh, a class at LenĂ´tre sounds amazing! Have you found any decent croissants in Toronto?

    Baker Man - hope you had time to make these croissants today. :)