Let’s Make Croissants

Let’s Make Croissants

Croissants always seemed so unattainable. My first try at croissants was a disaster. I mean it was really bad. I had no clue what I was doing. I had yet to go to culinary school. I just knew I liked croissants. I made them in August. That’s not a good idea for a novice dough maker. Let’s just say there was butter everywhere. I had no clue about temperature management or how to make it so the butter did not squirt out everywhere. It took me all day and when my wife came home from work. She saw me struggling and asked what I was doing. I said, “making croissants!”. She said, “I don’t think so.” I would say I have gotten better at over the last 30 years.

Since the early nineties, I have been trying to make my croissants better and better. I have improved but I still have work to do. It takes a lot of practice. That’s why I’m giving you such a small formula for this. I would rather have you make a small batch often rather than freezing the leftovers. Technically you can freeze baked and even unbaked croissants. But it’s not ideal. You see the dough starts to break down relatively quickly, within 2 weeks. It loses that beautiful texture you have on the day you bake them. I’m not saying don’t freeze, but be aware there’s a steep dropoff in flavor and texture.  

Make them often and you’ll get better and better at laminating the butter and dough together. You start to pick up nuances in the way you roll the dough or pound out the butter that will improve your croissants over time. But don’t expect those picture perfect spiral and honeycomb interiors on the first try. Sure, they’ll taste great, but it’s practice that will bring you closer to that perfect croissant.

What are the basic ingredients?

Chef Carl Jerome Croissant

Detrempe (dough part)

bread flour 100% 550g

milk 60% 330g

kosher salt 2% 11g

instant yeast 2% 11g

Sugar 5% 27.5g

Butter 10% 55g

Beurrage (butter part)

butter 25%* 246g

*in laminated doughs, the butter is a percentage of the weight of the dough

½ sheet pan

¼ sheet pan

Bench scraper

Stainless steel bowl for mixing

Rolling pin

Pastry brush

Chefs knife

Parchment paper or silpat

You’ll notice that I called these Carl Jerome croissants this week. Usually, it’s Chef Tom’s whatever. But I want to give credit for these and my love for laminated doughs to my teacher, Chef Carl Jerome. On the professional side, he worked with James Beard and was a world-class chef in New York before he came to teach in Chicago in the early nineties. He’s authored several books on healthy eating. On a personal side, he is my teacher and my friend. He’s not cooking anymore or making any croissants. He’s a teacher at a Buddhist school on the North shore of Chicago.

On to the Croissants!

Typically the croissant dough is made over two days. It can be made in one day and baked the same day but some patience will yield a much more enjoyable croissant. 

Day 1

Scale your ingredients including the butter. (note on butter) It’s a straight dough so put all the ingredients except for the beurrage in the mixer and mix on speed 1 for about 2 minutes. Then give it another couple of minutes at speed 2. It doesn’t need a lot of mixing as you will be developing the gluten with your rolling out and laminating the dough. Round the dough, place it in a bowl and cover it. Let it ferment for about an hour at room temperature. We’re trying to hydrate the dough as well as get some fermentation started. But don’t let it over-ferment. We don’t want ot use up all the gas early in the process. 

While you are fermenting the dough part or the detrempe, you can prepare the beurrage, the butter part. I like to use a good quality European butter. I used Finlandia for this batch but I have used Kerry Gold, Danish butter, Italian butter. My favorite is President butter from France. It has the most sweet beautiful flavor and is highly plastic. Plasticity is the amount the butter will bend before breaking. American butter will work and is fine. But because it has a lower fat content and higher water content, it will break and flake before European butter will. It’s worth it to invest in some good butter when you are making croissants. See my note about butter. 

Your goal with the butter is to get it pounded and rolled to a square that is six inches. It will be approximately ¼ inch thick. The way you do this is by cutting the butter in slabs. I have a 246g piece of butter I cut in 4 slabs. Then I layer them overlapping one over the other. It doesn’t have to be six inches square yet. Take a piece of plastic that is roughly twice the size of the butter you have laid out. Wrap the butter pieces loosely in the plastic. Pound the butter gently with a rolling pin. Once it is pretty well softened up, roll the butter in the plastic. It will start to expand in the plastic. Measure it and see if you are close to six inches square. If not or if you have some ragged edges, unwrap the plastic from the butter and cut the butter to make a square with your bench scraper. This may seem like a bit much. But if the butter and dough are the right size, it will go a long way to making better croissants. Rewrap the butter in the plastic and roll it flat again. It should now be six inches square. You can repeat the process until it is. Your butter may be pretty soft by this point. That’s ok because it’s going into the refrigerator to chill and firm up. 

Check on the detrempe and see if it has doubled in volume. If it has, roll it to a rectangle six inches by 12 inches. Yes, you should measure it with a tape or ruler. Again, some planning here will ensure your croissants are amazing. Try to get square corners as well. I used a ¼ sheet pan as a guide. A ¼ sheet is 12 inches long. Once you get it rolled out to 12 X 6, place the ¼ sheet with the dough on it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. This will firm up the dough. The key to good lamination is not so much to have the dough and butter be the same temperature but to have them the same consistency. Remember we want the butter block to be plastic. The dough should be the same.

After about 20 minutes in the refrigerator, the dough may not be as firm as the butter is. That’s ok too. Check to see if they are both the same consistency. The butter should bend easily and not crack. If in the process of checking the butter cracks, just reroll the butter to smooth. Cracks are not acceptable. Before unwrapping the butter from the plastic, test fit the butter block on the dough. It should fit right in the middle of the dough like in the picture. It should be half the length of the dough but go right to the edges of the dough. Unwrap the butter block and place it in the center of the dough. Bring the two ends of the dough up to meet in the middle. They should not overlap but meet butted up against each other. You should see the butter on the open side of the package. You are ready to laminate. You have just incorporated the beurrage into the detrempe. 

Turn the dough 90° so that the seam where the dough meets in the middle is vertical. Give the bench a light dusting of flour. Dust the top with flour as well. Gently press the rolling pin into the dough in a rolling motion making small indentations in the dough. You are trying to get the butter pressed out to the edges of the dough in a gentle manner. Once you have made the indentations, start to roll out the dough and butter together. Make sure there is enough flour under and on top of the dough. If there’s not enough, the dough will stick to the bench and tear. This doesn’t mean you should be dousing your dough in flour either. Use only what you need. You’ll be rolling the dough to a length of 18 inches. Our goal is to roll the dough three times as long as it is wide. If the dough does get a bit wider during rolling, you can adjust the length. For instance, if it gets to be 8 inches wide, you would roll to 24 inches long. Once it gets rolled out, dust off the excess flour with a brush. I like to keep one brush dry for this usage. Square off the corners with some gentle pulls and tugs. Fold one end towards the middle about ⅓ of the way. Dust off the excess flour on the third you just folded in. Fold the other third to cover the third you just folded. You should now have a square of dough folded in thirds. Turn the square 90° to the right. The seam should be on the right now. You have completed 1 turn of 3 on the croissant dough. Now it’s time to rest the dough. Loosely cover the dough with plastic and place it on the ¼ sheet. Return the dough to the refrigerator for 20 minutes. This will serve three purposes. First you are slowing down the fermentation process. That’s good because we won’t be baking these until the next day. Also it serves to firm the dough and butter. And lastly it relaxes the dough. Letting the gluten relax will make it easier to roll it out next time. Remember you have two more turns to do.

After 20 minutes rest, take the dough out of the refrigerator. Let the dough be at room temperature for five minutes before rolling. If you roll out too early, the butter will crack, no matter how high your butter quality. 

Just like the first turn, we’re going to take it slowly. Dust the bench with a bit of flour and dust the top of the dough as well. Press gently with the rolling pin to make small indentations. Then begin rolling. Take note of how the dough is rolling out. Is it sticking to the bench? Use some more flour. Is the top rolling at the same rate as the bottom of the dough? Bring your fingers up under the dough to release it from the bench. This helps to relax the dough as well. Continue to roll the dough until you get to three times as long as it is wide. It should be about eight inches wide at this point. So you should roll to approximately 24 inches long. If you don’t quite get to 24 inches, that’s ok. 21-23 is fine. Keep the sides straight as you roll the dough. It’s important to keep the dough a rectangle. 

Dust off the dough with a large brush. Fold the top down about ⅓ and fold the bottom up over the fold you just made. Dust the excess flour off as you do the folds. Once you have the dough folded in thirds, turn the dough 90° to the right. The seam should be on the right side. By folding and turning the same way each time, you insure even layers. You have one more turn to do but the dough needs some rest. Return the dough to the refrigerator for 20 minutes. 

You will find that the third turn may be a little more difficult. This is because the dough is fully developed at this point and may not want to be stretched any more. If you find it fights you on the third turn, relax the dough by getting fingers up underneath it. If it gets too warm and soft, return the dough to the refrigerator for a few minutes. If you see any leakage of butter or the dough rips, return the dough to the refrigerator. Also, rips can be repaired a bit with some extra flour to soak up the butter. Try to keep rips to a minimum. Once you have all three turns done, wrap the dough twice in plastic pretty tightly. I like the added step of putting the dough in a ziplock bag. The dough may expand a bit but the plastic and bag will serve to contain it more. Return the dough for an overnight fermentation. 

The next day, unwrap the dough fully and then cover it loosely with the plastic. Let it come to room temperature for about 30 minutes. It may become pretty soft during this time. If your ambient temperature is above 75°F, you may want to shorten this time. Gently start to roll out the dough just like you did for the turns but this time you’ll be rolling it to a ½ sheet pan size. Take your time and rest the dough as you go. Get your fingers up underneath it again. Relax the dough. Roll in both directions to ensure even thickness. Once the dough is rolled to a half sheet, place it on a ½ sheet pan and rest it in the refrigerator. If you don’t have the freezer space, you can rest it in the refrigerator. We are trying to firm up the dough for cutting. 

When the dough is relaxed, take it out of its resting place. Dust off any excess flour with the brush. With a sharp knife, cut the edges off of all four sides of the dough about ¼ inch. This will give you better edges to your croissants once they are cut. You will be cutting the croissants 10” X 3” in triangles. I like using isosceles triangles or right triangles. Alternate back and forth, up and down to use up as much of the dough as possible. Try to minimize the scraps. Save the scraps though. Arrange all the triangles side by side. Cut ½ inch notches in the bottoms of the croissants. This will help you to roll up the croissant into its final shape. 

To roll up the croissant shape, pull the bottom corners out a bit, stretching the notch you had made previously. Pull the point of the croissant out a bit to make the triangle even longer. You should have a very long thin triangle. Grasping the bottom corners, begin to roll the bottom to the top while only rolling with the corners. Do not roll using the middle of the croissant. Do not press down on the middle. When you get near the top of the croissant, pull the point, now the tail, out a bit and roll the croissant into it. This point will be on the bottom of the croissant now. Place the rolled croissant on a ½ sheet prepared with a silpat or parchment. As you roll the rest of the croissants, give them plenty of room to grow and expand as they bake. They will get much larger. Cover them with a towel and let them rise for up to 2 hours until they double in volume. 

Prepare some egg wash and very gently brush the croissants with egg wash. They are a bit delicate at this point. You don’t want to deflate them before they get in the oven. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Just before going in the oven, give them another egg wash. This will make the crust dark and crispy. Bake them for about 20-25 minutes. You can check on them at 15 minutes. You may want to turn the pan around for even browning. You should be rewarded with some awesome crunchy croissants. Let them cool a bit on a wire rack but you can definitely eat them while they are still warm. I can’t think of many other wonderful things to eat warm. Good luck on these. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t make perfect croissants the first time. As I said at the top, it takes a lot of practice. 

Happy baking!

Chef Tom