CROISSANTS!

I KNOW I said that I was going to make croissants, and I did; it's just that it's taken me a while to formulate my thoughts on the matter and get all the steps in my memory to write it all down. It is also never as it was when it happened, or rather, when the thought occurred to me to make these in the first place. If you remember, on the morning I decided to make them, it was a blustery, chilly day. Since then, the weather has turned unseasonably warm again and when I finally did make them on Wednesday morning, it was 10º warmer outside, which means 20º warmer in my apartment (my apartment is an oven at all times). Be that as it may, these turned out to be quite good and the recipe that follows should yield enough dough to make about 2 dozen croissants. I used only half of the dough and froze the rest, which I will use soon enough -  possibly with almond and/or chocolate for a little variety. 

To give proper credit here, I have used Jacques Pépin's recipe from his Complete Techniques cookbook (p. 568).

3 cups tightly packed all-purpose flour

2 tbs. extra flour to mix with the butter

3 sticks unsalted butter (softened)

1 generous cup milk (90-100º)

1 1/4 oz. package of dry yeast

1 tbs. sugar

1-1/2 tsp. salt

Combine milk, yeast and sugar, mix well and let stand for 5-10 minutes. Place 2-1/2 sticks of the butter and the 2 tablespoons flour in the bowl of an electric stand mixer or a food processor and mix until it is creamy and completely mixed. Add the flour with the remaining 2 oz. butter, salt and milk and mix on low speed until a ball forms. 

Remove from the bowl and place the dough on a lightly dusted wooden board or a marble pastry board and knead and shape into a rectangle. Roll the dough into a rectangle to approximately 20x12 inches. Spread the butter mixture over 2/3 of the surface, leaving about 1 inch unbuttered along the edges. Lift the unbuttered third over the center and fold the other buttered section over that. Place the dough into a plastic bag or wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (preferably longer). 

Put the dough again on a lightly floured wooden board or marble slab and roll out into another rectangle, always rolling out from the center (not back and forth), of the same dimensions as above and fold into thirds as before. Do not roll too much as you don't want the butter to come through the dough. Once you've created another rectangle, refrigerate again. This will be two turns. You will repeat this process four more times to reach 6 turns. 

As you can see this is an all-day affair so if you like, you can do this throughout the day and refrigerate overnight (as I did) and roll out for the last time in the morning and continue with this recipe as follows.

Prepare baking sheets lined in parchment paper.

Roll out the dough into yet another rectangle of the same dimensions and divide the dough lengthwise into two strips. Cut diagonally to create triangles (one strip should yield about a dozen or so triangles). Take each triangle and press lightly with your rolling pin to stretch each triangle to a larger dimension and start to roll them up from the widest point so that the tips end up on the top. You can place them on the parchment and either curl them to be rounded or leave them straight (see photograph below). Once you've finished creating your croissants, you will need to proof the dough in a warm place for about 50-60 minutes (the inside of the oven is perfect) at a temperature of 80-90º. Remove from the oven and set the temperature at 425º.

Take an egg yolk beaten with a teaspoon of milk and brush the croissants and let sit while the oven is preheating.

Ready for the oven!

Once the oven is hot enough, place the sheet(s) in the middle level and bake for 15-18 minutes until they are golden brown and crisp. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes before eating (with more butter and really fine apricot preserves!).

Bon appetit!