A Flavor for Life

There are a couple things on my baking bucket list:  macarons, croissants, and chocolate souffles are among them. I shared my failures and eventual triumph with you as I developed a recipe for macarons. It’s taken me awhile to check croissants off the list.

You see, I have been intending to make croissants for quite some time now, but have never had a free day to spend chilling and rolling dough until this week when I took a reprieve from work, leaving me with an entire week to spoil my family silly with baked goods galore.

And these are the resulting products from yesterday’s adventures: fresh croissants. They are buttery. They are flaky on the outside with a rich, moist center of layers upon layers of buttery goodness. They were made with these very hands. And can be made by yours, too!

Croissants
Makes about 30 mini croissants
Adapted from Young Mo Kim’s A Collection of Fine Baking
Note: Please excuse the McKinsey-esque feel of the diagrams. It’s a curse, really.

Détrempe
500 g flour (~ 2 c + 2 tbspn)
15 g nonfat dry milk (~1 1/2 tbspn)
35 g granulated sugar (~ 3 tbspn)
10 g salt (~2 tspns)
10 g instant dry yeast (~1 tbspn)
25 g unsalted butter (~1 2/3 tbspn)
300 g cold water (1 1/2 c)

Butter block (yes, you read that correctly)
250 g unsalted butter, cold (2 1/4 sticks)

Egg wash
2 egg yolks
2 tbspns milk
pinch of salt

Prepare the détrempe
1. On a clean working surface, mix and sift the flour, and dry milk
2. Create a well in the middle of your flour mound and stir into it the sugar and salt. Cover the well with flour.
3. Use your fingers to lightly mix in the 25 g of butter and the yeast, forming small pebbles. The key thing to remember here is to keep the yeast separated from the sugar and salt.
4. Create a wide, shallow well in the middle of the flour mound again and slowly pour in the cold water
5. Knead the dough with your hands. It will be very wet and sticky at first. Continue to knead the dough for 5-7 minutes using your hands and a bench scraper until the dough comes clean off your hands and your working surface.
6. Place the dough into a large, deep bowl and cover with a towel or with plastic wrap that you have poked a couple holes into so that the dough can breathe. Leave at room temperature for around 30 minutes.
7. Remove the dough and place on a large piece of floured plastic wrap. Flatten the dough with your hands, cover, and refrigerate for 45 minutes.

For the beurre manié
1. Place the cold butter on a piece of plastic wrap, cover with another piece of plastic wrap, and lightly pound the butter with a rolling pin to flatten and soften it. Create a square butter block about 8″ by 8″.

Encasing the beurre manié in the détrempe
1. Remove the chilled détrempe and place on a well-floured surface. i) Roll out as demonstrated and place the beurre manié in the center. ii) Encase the beurre manié with the wings of the détrempe.

2. Place the dough, seam-side up, on a well-floured surface, and roll out to create a rectangle about 9″ x 21″. Brush off excess flour.

Foldings – three tour simples*
1. Fold the ends of the rectangle in onto the center of the dough, as pictured

2. Turn the dough 90 degrees, so that the “spine” of your “book” faces away from you. Roll into a rectangle again about 8″ by 24″. Do another tour simple.
3. Cover your “book” with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. Then do your third and last tour simple. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 more minutes (up to 12 hours)

* You could also opt here to do 1 tour simple, 1 tour double, and 1 tour simple. For the tour double, picture your rectangle divided into fourths rather than thirds. Fold the outermost fourths over onto the inner fourths so that the edges of your rectangle meet in the middle. Then fold the folded dough once more to create a “book” of a sort.

Shape your croissants
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F

1. Prep your egg wash by whisking together the egg yolks, milk, and salt
1. Roll the croissant dough out into a long rectangle about 1/8″ in thickness and 6″ tall (for minis)
2. Cut isosceles triangles with a base about 3″ wide. Give the tip of the triangle a bit of a tug. This will help add layers without adding density to the croissant.
3. Cut a small slit into the bases of the triangles, and roll the croissants up, starting from the base of the triangles.
4. Brush with egg wash and place on ungreased baking tray. Proof at room temperature until the croissants are light, fluffy, and have doubled in size.
5. Back for 10-12 minutes until golden on top
Serve warm