Classic French Croissants: Tips & Techniques

[sugarseattle]

Finally, beautiful croissants! Just thought I'd post photos of my croissants reheating the next day.

I finally was able to achieve the nice crust, super flavor, and nice layers. Still having a bit of an issue with butter leakage, but I think that will probably go away in time. I think the butter leaking is due to the butter cracking slightly during the rollout, so I'm going to try to be more conscious of butter temperature during the last fold...perhaps not leave it in the fridge as long.

I"m excited to have the nice outside texture...which I'm pretty impressed with because I don't have a proofer! I just sprinkle a little water on the top during proofing and then egg wash before baking.

[John DePaula]

Finally, beautiful croissants! Just thought I'd post photos of my croissants reheating the next day.

I finally was able to achieve the nice crust, super flavor, and nice layers. Still having a bit of an issue with butter leakage, but I think that will probably go away in time. I think the butter leaking is due to the butter cracking slightly during the rollout, so I'm going to try to be more conscious of butter temperature during the last fold...perhaps not leave it in the fridge as long.

I"m excited to have the nice outside texture...which I'm pretty impressed with because I don't have a proofer! I just sprinkle a little water on the top during proofing and then egg wash before baking.

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Those look pretty delicious and flaky! Bravo!

By the way, do you soften the butter a bit, prior to folding with the detrempe, by battering it with the rolling pin? This softens the butter, makes it more malleable; that might help prevent it cracking when you roll it out.

[sugarseattle]

i have been so far softening with my fingers, almost massaging it over the dough, but I think when i get into more large scale production, I'll do that over a parchment lined sheet pan, and then flip it over onto the dough to begin the folds. I just sold my sheeter, but i think it's totally possible without it...I am not afraid

Edited March 17, 2008 by sugarseattle (log)

[John DePaula]

i have been so far softening with my fingers, almost massaging it over the dough, but I think when i get into more large scale production, I'll do that over a parchment lined sheet pan, and then flip it over onto the dough to begin the folds. I just sold my sheeter, but i think it's totally possible without it...I am not afraid

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The disadvantage with using your fingers, besides being hard on your fingers , is that it may warm up the butter too much.

I kind of batter the butter as evenly as possible with the french style rolling pin, then rotate 90 degrees and do it again. Makes it nice and malleable without warming it up.

HTH.

[gfron1]

I haven't made croissants in ages (probably 15 years), but I've been having the urge to do some fundamentals baking lately. I made a few croissants and a few pain au chocolate. Thanks to this topic I made sure they were well baked!

There's more chocolate in there than the picture shows!

[alanamoana]

gorgeous rob, just beautiful!

[Chris Hennes]

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Is that just an egg wash on there? When I first glanced at the photo it looked like a caramel coating!

[gfron1]

Oooh yum...caramel coating - great idea! But alas, just a yolk heavy wash. And thanks Alana.

[pastrygirl]

This is all quite interesting. The recipe we use requires kneading the dough for far longer than I am patient with, you need to get a really nice window. After a good rest it rolls out fine though.

Currently, we do four single turns (folding in three). Is there any good reason not to do three double turns (fold in four) instead? Wouldn't you get the same number of layers with less time and effort? I don't mind doing it the hard way if there's a reason, but I also want it to not take all day.

[alanamoana]

This is all quite interesting.  The recipe we use requires kneading the dough for far longer than I am patient with, you need to get a really nice window.  After a good rest it rolls out fine though.

Currently, we do four single turns (folding in three).  Is there any good reason not to do three double turns (fold in four) instead?  Wouldn't you get the same number of layers with less time and effort?  I don't mind doing it the hard way if there's a reason, but I also want it to not take all day.

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different books have different rolling techniques (number of turns, single, double, etc...), but here's my take on it:

when making double turns (book fold), you need to roll the dough out a bit thinner in order to execute the turn well. after folding, the dough shouldn't be too thick that you have a hard time rolling it out the next time after the rest. also, because it is a yeasted dough, it can't be too thick or it won't cool down during the rest and you risk over proofing or exhausting your yeast before you're done with the turns. because it is a laminated dough, rolling very thin can be an issue because you can get tearing, etc. within the layers and you end up without the great flakiness that defines a good croissant.

that's just my two cents, but i'm sure you could do two single turns and one double turn which would save you time and probably not ruin your dough.

Edited April 26, 2008 by alanamoana (log)

[pastrygirl]

Alanamoana, that makes sense, in this case the shortcut sounds risky. That's OK, my staff does all the rolling anyway!

[sugarseattle]

that's funny, we've been doing 3 single turns and our croissants seem fabulous...I wonder if we should add another turn?

[alanamoana]

that's funny, we've been doing 3 single turns and our croissants seem fabulous...I wonder if we should add another turn?

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i'm sure they're fine! from what i understand, croissant and danish dough is pretty forgiving and different books will describe different methods. the trick is to read the dough and see how many turns it can take without destroying the layers. that's really the only limitation.

[rickster]

I made the Tartine croissant recipe a couple of weeks ago and had a fair amount of butter leakage during baking, which prompts what may be a dumb question. No matter what specific technique you use to incorporate the butter, you eventually cut through the laminated layers when you form the croissants, so why doesn't every recipe end up with puddles of butter (this would be true for puff pastry as well)? Seems to me the butter leakage might be more related to proofing or baking temperature.

[alanamoana]

I made the Tartine croissant recipe a couple of weeks ago and had a fair amount of butter leakage during baking, which prompts what may be a dumb question. No matter what specific technique you use to incorporate the butter, you eventually cut through the laminated layers when you form the croissants, so why doesn't every recipe end up with puddles of butter (this would be true for puff pastry as well)? Seems to me the butter leakage might be more related to proofing or baking temperature.

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you answered your own question.

leakage is usually due to proofing at too high a temp and baking at too low a temp

[rickster]

Thanks!

[sugarseattle]

that makes perfect sense about the leakage...

I am wondering, though, since we can't purchase a proofer right now, whether it would be a good idea to proof the little suckers in the fridge overnite so it's nice and cool for them???

Right now our schedule is:

day 1 preferment which lives in the fridge overnite

day 2 dough and turns which live in fridge overnite

day 3 rollout and forming, proof on rack while spritzing with water, then baking

so I'm thinking I would switch to doing rollout and forming on day 2. The only hard part is what do do since we're closed sunday.

i'm so excited to be getting to the bottom of this croissant mystery.

A customer gave me a hug today he enjoyed the croissant to much! Wow!

[pastrygirl]

I made the Tartine croissant recipe a couple of weeks ago and had a fair amount of butter leakage during baking, which prompts what may be a dumb question. No matter what specific technique you use to incorporate the butter, you eventually cut through the laminated layers when you form the croissants, so why doesn't every recipe end up with puddles of butter (this would be true for puff pastry as well)? Seems to me the butter leakage might be more related to proofing or baking temperature.

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The croissants I've had from Tartine (at their shop in SF) are very, very buttery, to the point of challenging the idea that there is no such thing as too much butter. So, if the recipe in the book is true to the original, the extra butter might make them a little more challenging to work with.

[schneich]

hi,

we are in the process of developing our croissant formula. the outside is nice and puffy, dark golden brown, and they taste very good, just like in france. our pains au chocolat are equipped with two 7.5 gram valrhona chocolate batons :-P . our only problem is that the internal texture is a little bit too spongy, and in some croissants the inside is kind of collapsed to a dense mass, leaving a large void. what could we do wrong... ??

cheers

t.

[gfron1]

Note to self - don't proof the croissants in the top oven while baking in the bottom oven. You end up with hideous butter flour blobs

[alanamoana]

hi,

we are in the process of developing our croissant formula. the outside is nice and puffy, dark golden brown, and they taste very good, just like in france. our pains au chocolat are equipped with two 7.5 gram valrhona chocolate batons :-P . our only problem is that the internal texture is a little bit too spongy, and in some croissants the inside is kind of collapsed to a dense mass, leaving a large void. what could we do wrong... ??

cheers

t.

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there are a couple of things to troubleshoot here torsten:

oven temp: if the oven temp is too high, the outside will bake, set and color before the inside gets a chance to bake so it just sort of collapses once taken out of the oven. the chocolate might act a bit like an insulator as well.

over proofing: if the croissants over proof, the interior might become spongy. but i feel like it might be a case of too many turns. if you roll and turn the dough too many times, you loose the layers and instead just get buttery bread instead of flaky croissant.

i'm sure someone else can think of something else that i'm missing, but it is hard to do without specifics. good luck!

rob, don't know what to say except...hope that note sticks!

Edited May 29, 2008 by alanamoana (log)

[gfron1]

Consumers are funny. I drizzled chocolate on top of my flattened croissants, put a sign next to them that said Paus Schoenen (Pope's Shoes in Dutch) and they were the first thing to sell out.

[yellowmnm81]

After reading this thread, watching the Baking with Julia clips over and over again, reading the Baking with Julia book and Tartine books over and over again, I finally made my first batch of croissants! I actually had quite a bit of difficulty doing the last of the rolling and forming - the dough started to tear everywhere!! But, miraculously, they came out of the oven flaky and amazingly delicious. I guess you can't go wrong with all that butter!

I used the Tartine recipe, but with Baking with Julia technique... dunno if it was the best decision, but they were darn tasty! Especially the chocolate ones

Even though they're not quite croissant shapes... I think they're sorta cute

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

[gfron1]

Those look great yellowwmn! Glad you took the plunge.

I want to split hairs here. I made these yesterday:

Pretty enough and tasted just like they should, and baked enough (although I would go another couple of minutes next time. BUT, when I see what I consider perfect croissants, they are uniform in color - they don't have the light stripes at each layer transition. My coloring is from egg wash. Does this really matter, or is there a way for me to not have my light spots, or should I not be doing an egg wash and let them naturally brown?

[alanamoana]

what you can do, is start of with a high temp to get the oven spring and rise out of the croissants and then turn the temp down a bit to get a more even browning. if you keep the temp up the whole time, you end up taking them out a bit early so they don't get too dark and you often have the white striping.