MG croissants

Welcome to the Free Recipe of the Month! Remember the free-recipe-of-the month is free just for the month that it's featured in!  After that it's retired to the Complete Betterbaking.com Recipe Archives.
This month please enjoy these moist and fragrant  Classic French Butter Croissants
Who doesn’t love croissants? Flakey, buttery, golden, crescents that are synonymous with French pastry. At hotel school, we were careful to distinguish ‘croissants de boulangere’ and ‘croissants de patissiere” . The difference was: baker’s croissants called for yeast, in addition to milk, water, butter, salt, and flour where as pastry chef croissants were crisper and omitted the yeast, relying instead, only on the lamination of butter and dough, to create flakey strata. Essentially, the water content in the butter turns to steam while encountering the oven heat’s heat, causing mini explosions. These explosions of steam in turn cause the layers of dough, folded with butter, to rise. Baker’s croissants are similar but have yeast in them and the overall results are a bit more bready, rather than flakey. Both are excellent. And if you add more sugar and eggs, you're on the road to Danish. A key to making great croissants is to make sure your recipe calls for, by weight, the same amount of fat (butter) as flour. Never use shortening! And take some time trying out different varieties of unsalted butter brands.
Folding in butter into dough is intimidating but much like strudel making – even your first, most sucky effort will produce nicely edible croissants, especially when you consider that these days, no one, except the best pastry shops and you(!) use all butter.
Two YouTube videos on how to fold croissants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj8YlnRarJU
Or:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVQB_PqIBzA
Bon appetit, and remember, make a double batch and freeze on batch, unbaked, for another day. And don't forget to have fun!

Croissant Dough4 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 cup warm milk
6 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
½ cup bread flour
3-3 ½ cup all-purpose flour
Butter Roll-In3/4 pound (1 1/4 cup) unsalted butter
Egg Wash1 egg
1 egg yolk
To make the dough, whisk together yeast and water and let stand one minute. Stir in milk, sugar, salt, butter, bread flour and most of the all-purpose flour. Stir, then, using a dough hook, knead on slowest speed; add in more flour, as required, to make a soft but firm dough, for 3-4 minutes. This is not a dough that you knead too long and it’s soft and a bit limp.
Cover the work bowl where dough is, and let rise, at room temperature 45 minutes or preferably refrigerate overnight.
For the Butter Roll In, soften butter in a bowl and blend in the flour. On a flour sheet of paper, shape butter into a 6 inch square that’s about one inch thick. Wrap well in wax paper or parchment and chill the butter until very solid. To prepare dough, deflate gently, and then, on a well floured board, roll out to an oval of 10 by 17 inches. Brush any excess flour off of dough. Place the butter pat you have prepared in the middle and fold in four ends, to make a packet. It will look square. Using a nice heavy rolling pin, gently hit the dough to help butter break up and soften inside its dough ‘container”. Rolling and pounding gently, create a rectangle of 14 by 6 inches and about one inch thick. Wrap well and refrigerate 20 minutes. Now it’s time for the ‘turns’. You will do four in total with a rest of 20 minutes (to an hour) in-between.
On a floured surface, roll dough to a rectangle, about 24 inches by 14 inches wide, with the long side facing you. Fold in the dough sideways, from each side to meet in the middle, much as you would fold a paper to place in an envelope. Again, brush of excess flour. Place dough on a parchment lined sheet and cover with plastic and refrigerate 20 minutes. Then, repeat the rolling and folding process, but this time, work with the dough with the closed part (vs open edges) facing you. Refrigerate 20 minutes again and repeat the rolling and folding process, again make sure cut or open edges are away from you (otherwise you will be rolling and pressing out the butter through these open edges). Refrigerate 2 hours or overnight after final turn.
The next day, or before baking, allow dough to warm up a little. Cut in two equal sections.
Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured board, roll out dough to a rectangle of 24 inches by 17 inches wide. Using a large pastry wheel or pizza wheel, cut into large wedges.  Roll each up into a croissant and place on prepared baking sheet. Brush with egg wash. Cover lightly with plastic and let rise until very puffy, 2-3 hours.
Brush again with egg wash. Preheat oven to 375 F.  Place croissants in oven and bake 12-16 minutes or until golden deep brown all over.
Let cool to just warm before eating
Makes 12-18 croissants


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