croisssssssants!

[asakiyume]

osprey_archer has been visiting, and together we embarked on an epic task: baking croissants from scratch. This truly is an epic task as you need to roll out the dough multiple times, and in between, it should rest in the fridge for eight hours (you can shorten this, but the longer the better, say the experts. Or at least one expert. This is the video we used for instruction.)

We documented the last rolling out, cutting into triangles, forming into the proper croissant shape, final rising, and emergence from the oven. All but the last two photos are below the cut.



We used a ruler to make sure we rolled the dough out big enough:



You can see the CHUNKS OF BUTTER right in there:



osprey_archer applies pressure to the rolling pin





Then we cut the dough into triangles and rolled them up:



Some rolled but as yet unrisen croissants. Some of these look a little funky at this stage.



We put them to rest under this wonderful tea towel of narrowboat-worthy canals in Merrie England.



Behold! The croissants have risen!



The first couple of batches that we baked, we forgot to brush with diluted egg, but we remembered for the last batch, and Oh My Goodness, how beautiful that last batch looked. If you decide to bake croissants, don't skip the egg wash!

Here they are, fresh from the oven:



And here's the inside of one. Déliceu!



Making croissants was one of two New Year's resolutions I had this year, so I'm very grateful that osprey_archer helped me fulfill it! I doubt I would have done it without her visit, and I certainly would have gone astray in following the directions correctly.

Comments

[queenoftheskies]

Those look delicious!

[asakiyume]

They are! We have overeaten!

[zdenka]

How delightful! Those look beautiful!

[asakiyume]

We were so happy with them! First time lucky!

[littlerhymes]

Amazing! Those look so delicious, I want to reach through the screen and try one...

[asakiyume]

I wish we could distribute them through the screen! We would share with one and all!

[pameladean]

Oh, wow, those look just like croissants! (The first time I dug up a peony to move it, I actually said aloud, "This looks just like a peony root!" I had seen drawings and photos of peony roots, but all the peonies I had had been planted by previous owners of the property.) But that sense of recognition, especially if one has made the food in question, is so sharp and lovely. I remember having it with both wontons and spring rolls. You do this strange thing, and suddenly you have a familiar object.

P.

[pameladean]

English muffins, too. P.

[asakiyume]

I have made English muffins just one time! Also crumpets (also only one time).

[pameladean]

We found that the English muffins were amazing fresh off the griddle, but the next day they were unnervingly like commercial ones.

[asakiyume]

Yes, my recollection was that my homemade ones were not any better than the store-bought ones (and my crumpets were worse).

[pameladean]

I looked at crumpet recipes and went "Nnnnnggg." I think they are tricky. P.

[asakiyume]

I know exactly what you mean: I had it the first time we boiled down maple sap for maple syrup. Will it really, truly work? Will this slightly sweet water turn into syrup? And then it does!

You do this strange thing, and suddenly you have a familiar object --absolutely the perfect words for it.

Wontons and spring rolls--you are giving me future projects!

[pameladean]

I thought you'd know what I meant!

Wontons and spring rolls are much easier than croissants, though there are tricky bits.

P.

[house_wren]

Thanks for the baking story. I've made croissants only twice and both times it was amazing. Can't digest gluten now, so I use my memory to enjoy them.

Also in my memory: Fairport Convention's Tam Lin! Oh! I loved that album and that song so much. It's an October song; perhaps that's why you are listening to it?

[asakiyume]

It was pure chance! osprey_archer and I had been talking about the song "Scarborough Fair," and I had a playlist of different versions of it and Tam Lin, so I put it on... and here we are! (I love it too)

[pameladean]

I've been listening to it a lot as well. YouTube recently coughed up a video of Fairport doing it at the 2017 Cropredy festival, with Richard Thompson sitting in; and also a version from John Peal's "Top Gear" from, I think, 1967, which is rougher and faster than the album version but really shows off Sandy Denny.

P.

[asakiyume]

Oooh, off to go ask YouTube for same...

[anna_wing]

Congratulations! Just looking at the recipe makes me flinch, and in a hot climate, puff pastry of any kind is best left to professionals!

[asakiyume]

Re: the recipe, yes, it is an awful lot of butter! And yeah, it's a tantalizing challenge for a cool autumn day in a temperate climate, but a nightmare for a hot one.

[cmcmck]

I have to skip the egg wash due to an egg allergy but a milk wash also works pretty well!

[asakiyume]

Excellent substitution--thank you for the tip!

[shewhomust]

You are an inspiration to us all!

(I made croissants once. They tasted good, but were very irregular in shape and size. I keep meaning to try again...)

[asakiyume]

Thank you kindly, we bow to you in pleased exhaustion! (Also: stuffed with croissants)

It's such a time-intensive process! It's not the sort of thing that fits easily into one's routine--I'm not surprised you haven't made them again.

[shewhomust]

Well, yes. Though my routine does already accommodate baking a batch of sourdough every five or six days, so in theory there's less far to stretch!

[sartorias]

Wow, those are gorgeous!!!

[asakiyume]

They look like the real thing, right? And even more importantly, they tasted like the real thing :-)

[amaebi]

Beautiful. :)

[asakiyume]

^_^

And quite tasty!

[minoanmiss]

OMG making croissants from scratch earns you serious street cred among bakers. I am so impressed.

[asakiyume]

We were pretty pleased that we managed it!

[genarti]

They look amazing!!! And I can attest that they tasted amazing, too. :D

I've always wanted to make croissants to prove to myself I can, but haven't yet. The closest I've come is the time I made pain au chocolat. They came out pretty well, but I did set the oven a little bit on fire in the middle of a zoom family Mother's Day brunch (turns out rimmed pans to contain all that butter are, uh, important), so it was a memorably chaotic experience in other ways.

[asakiyume]

Hahaha, a little bit of family fire does wonders for storytelling in years to come.

But if you made pain au chocolat, I feel you can say you've made croissants--I mean they're basically croissants, just with chocolate added. In the video we used (linked above), one of the variations she includes is pain au chocolat.

And I'm so glad you liked them!!

[rimturse]

Puff pastry does require huge commitment. I'll stick to eating them, and yours look very tasty! ;)

[asakiyume]

I wish we could have zapped our finished products around the internet to one and all!

[rimturse]

This is something that needs to be invented!