Le Croissant! Quintessential example of French Buttery Goodness!

Melting , buttery, flaky crescents. Bake a decent, impressive batch of these and nobody will be able to question your baking skills.

Completely ecstatic at the results I achieved this morning from my first try. Could not have asked for better croissants- flaky, crisp on the outside and chewy layers of dough inside. Making Croissants are time consuming, yet the results you can achieve rival a good french boulangerie. Key to good croissants my friends, is patience.

Recipe for Croissants

Makes 20 small croissants (adjust sizes accordingly)

Dough needs either 1-2 hours Proof or Overnight

Folding and chilling process requires 1 hour of chilling

Final Rise for Croissants 1-2 hours

Dough

350g All Purpose Flour

200ml Milk, room temp (may need more or less)

8g Dried Yeast

1tsp Salt

2 tbsp Sugar

250g Butter, room temp

1 Egg, beaten with 2 tbsp milk

1. Preparing dough

Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl excluding milk. Gradually add milk while mixing until a soft, slightly sticky yet pliable dough is formed. Knead by hand or with a mixer and kneading attachment until soft and elastic, about 10 minutes.

Cover dough well in plastic wrap, and depending on time constraints can leave to proof for 1-2 hour at room temperature, or in the fridge overnight with gives better flavour.

2. Preparing Butter Sheet

On your worktop cut a large piece of plastic wrap and place butter on top, cover with another piece of plastic wrap. Gently press down on your palms to spread the butter, and begin shaping with the rolling pin into a large square, ideally just over 1/2 centimetre thick. TIP: I like to straighten sides with a knife and place the scraps back in the middle of butter sheet to be rerolled.

Chill in fridge until cold (15mins)

3. Folding and Chilling/ Laminating dough

Flour worktop well. Take out Butter sheet to rest for few minutes. Take out dough and roll into a rectangle roughly 2x the size of the butter sheet.

Place Butter Sheet on 1 half of the dough and cover with the other half.

Now we want to fold the dough like a letter: take the bottom third and fold 2x over to get 3 layers. You should get a smaller rectangle of dough.Cover and Chill for 20 minutes.

Take dough out and rotate 90 degrees from previous step, getting a taller rectangle. Roll out gently until roughly 1 1/2 cm , and repeat the letter fold. Chill for 20minutes and repeat once more. By now we should have 81 layers- 3 x 3 x 3. Wrap dough and leave overnight in the fridge.

4. Shaping Croissants

Flour worktop and take out dough. Divide in half to ease rolling.

Roll into a rectangle which is under 1/2 cm thick. Trim edges to straighten them and cut diagonals along length of rectangle, so you get pointy triangles. Size of triangles can be altered for preferred size of croissants.

To shape Croissants, take wide end of triangle with point facing away from you and roll up tightly. You can bend the ends together for crescent shapes, or leave them straight.

Arrange on a greaseproof paper lined baking tray, leaving a couple of cm around each croissant as they will increase in size.Cover trays and proof for 1-2hours, until size has roughly doubled and have a marshmallowy springiness when touched.

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Glaze croissants with prepared egg wash, taking care not to put too much as it may hinder the croissants rising. Bake for roughly 20 mins, until a golden brown colour. Cool and serve.

Notes

• Can add a teaspoon of chopped chocolate or cheese to triangles before shaping them
• Can cut into rectangles, fill with chocolate and roll over for Pain au Chocolat
• Pictures of Croissant shaping

Let me know how it goes if you do try this recipe.