Croissant (2024)

FAQs

How many book turns for croissants? ›

More than 3x3 turns is not recommended for croissants. For example: 2x3 and 1x4 turns = 36 layers of butter = only suitable for cream pastries due to the tight honeycomb texture. ROLL OUT THE DOUGH IN VARIOUS STAGES. Slice the thicker side after each fold, not just at the beginning.

Sure, curved croissants look fancy, but did you know that straight croissants are the way to go? In fact, there are strict laws in France about straight croissants vs. curved croissants. Seriously! Legally, you can not roll out a straight croissant unless it has 100% butter.

First: use high-protein bread flour. The extra protein gives you the gluten structure to support all those thin layers. Second secret? We'll learn to laminate the dough using a tri-fold process that creates 109 distinct layers of butter and dough—giving us the croissant's distinctive crunch and flavor at home.

A classic French croissant has 55 layers (27 layers of butter), achieved with a French fold followed by 3 letter folds. Less layers will mean a different texture (less tender, more chewy, with more defined layers). Too many layers bring a risk of the butter getting too thin and melting into the dough.

French lock-in requires the butter block to be half the length of your dough. Then the edges of the dough are brought together and sealed to create three layers. English lock-in requires the butter block to be two thirds the length of your dough. Then the butter-less dough is brought half way across the butter.

A boulangerie is a French bakery, as opposed to a pastry shop. Bakeries must bake their bread on-premises to hold the title of 'boulangerie' in France.

…of Waldeck-Rousseau's administration was the Associations Act of July 1901, which abolished all restrictions on the right of association for legal purposes. This freedom was withheld from religious associations, however, because they were directed from abroad.

“The majority of shoppers find it easier to spread jam, or their preferred filling, on a straighter shape with a single sweeping motion,” he said in a statement.

Some bakers use anywhere from 25% to even 50% of butter in their formulas which means if your butter isn't the best tasting, your final croissants might not be either. At the bakery, we use imported French butter that is 82% fat. The higher the fat content, the richer and more flavorful the butter will be.

Your croissants were probably under-proofed. Just let them proof a bit longer so they get wobbly and increase visually in size. When under-proofed the butter tends to leak out from in between the layers and you end up with a butter puddle.

Should you eat a croissant with a fork and knife? ›

Use a fork and knife to cut apart the croissant as an alternative to tearing it. Put the croissant on a plate. Hold a fork and knife in whichever hand you prefer for each, and cut the croissant apart bite-by-bite. This is the least messy way to eat a croissant and to keep your hands clean.

These delicious pastries are said to have been invented in Vienna, Austria. The tale goes that a baker created the crescent-shaped bread to celebrate the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, mirroring the crescent moon on the Turkish flag.

Across various accounts of croissant history, most sources agree that it originates from Austria as the kipferl.

The origin of the croissant can actually be traced back to 13th century Austria, where it was called the kipferl, the German word for crescent. However it was an Austrian artillery officer August Zang who founded a Viennese bakery at 92, rue du richelieu in Paris.

Croissants are not made with puff pastry. Puff pastry and croissant pastry are very similar – layers of pastry and butter folded – but they differ in the number of turns and folds. For croissant pastry three tri-folds are perfect.

Before we get to the recipe let's talk about styles of lamination. Traditionally puff pastry is made with 6 single or 'letter' folds like shown below.

Do not over-knead / develop the dough too much, too much gluten will not help during the lamination process. The lamination process itself is a kind of stretch and fold anyway and will strengthen the dough.

Croissants are made by cutting the folded dough into triangles. Depending on the recipe, the dough starts off with either 3 or 4 folds (according to our formula, thats either 55 or 163 layers already). The triangle is then rolled up lengthwise, from the base to the tip, resulting in the recognizable croissant shape.