Croissants

Recipe

Croissants - Sally's Baking Addiction

How it turned out

I was a student of the croissant before I attempted this recipe. I watched and re-watched Bake Off episodes and Youtube videos on how to laminate croissant dough properly. I read and re-read this recipe about 10 times. And I think, given the difficulty of croissants, it paid off.

There was a flakiness to them, for sure. But I think it could have been flakier. About half ended up leaking butter during the bake, so in terms of flavour, only some packed that really buttery punch.

What I learned

Proofing is important. I knew keeping the butter cold was critical. What I didn't know was how important the room temperature proof was. So I kind of half-assed it, and only let it sit out for 30 mins instead of an hour. What I learned is that is one of the causes of giant air pockets.

Browning does not necessarily mean fully baked. While they turned out to be a nice deep golden colour, as expected, when I broke into some of them, there was a bit of translucent dough still present. So it wasn't baked quite long enough. In hindsight, I should have moved them to a lower rack and baked them for longer.

Work in small batches, freeze the rest. This particular recipe yielded 16 croissants. That's far too many to try and handle for a first attempt. And also far too many for 2 of us to try and eat. So I ended up freezing the dough after they had been cut into the 8 larger rectangle (freezing 4 of them). The dough kept great in the freezer! I used it the next week to bake pain au chocolat.