Croissants

Ever since I saw a french cook Pino make these croissants on youtube, I have had several dreams about them:) I held back because they are totally sinfully unhealthy and the complex multi step over night process scared me a bit too. So after a lot of hesitation, I went ahead and started making these yesterday.

Steps involved at a higher level:

• Making the croissant dough
• Laminating the butter
• Folding and rolling process
• Shaping the croissants
• Brushing and baking

Ingredients:

1. 2 1/4 cups of flour plus some for dusting
2. 0.5 oz salt
3. 0.5 oz yeast
4. 8-9 oz of lukewarm milk
5. 8 oz of butter--should be chilled
6. 1 egg beaten with 2 tbsp of water

Method:

Making the dough: 

1. Mix the yeast in the warm milk and let it stand for about 10 minutes. The mixture should turn frothy. 
2. Mix the flour, sugar, salt and pour in the milk mixture and knead to a smooth elastic dough.
3. Let it stand for about 1.5- 2 hours. The dough should rise

Laminate the butter:

1. Lay down a cling film on the counter and place the slabs of butter on the film horizontally
2. Cover the butter with another layer of cling film and use hands to gently press into a flat sheet. The butter should be malleable
3. Once the butter is pressed down to a small rectangle, use a rolling pin and roll it further.
4. Seal the cling film and refrigerate the butter

Folding and rolling the dough:

1. Take the risen dough and punch out the air
2. Roll it to a rectangle (a bigger rectangle than the butter rectangle)
3. Place the butter in the center of the flour rectangle and fold the flour sheet over the butter sheet (a 3 fold like how a letter is folded)
4. Pat the rectangle slab made in the above the step with the rolling pin. Do not roll immediately as the butter will crack.
5. Turn the slab 90 degrees right, in other words, make one right turn :)
6. Roll out the rectangle with the rolling pin
7. Use the extra flour to dust the surface so that the dough does not stick.
8. Wrap it tightly in cling film and refrigerate it for at least 30 mins
9. This is round 1. Repeat it two more times
10. Remember to always turn the dough slab. The short side of the rectangle should face you while you start rolling
11. Once the 3rd round is complete, refrigerate the tightly wrapped slab for at least 8 hours.

Shaping the croissants:

1. Cut the slab into 2 and work with one half.The layers of butter and dough are visible in the above picture
2. Roll out the half into a rectangle about 1/2 cm thick and cut out long triangles with a pizza cutter
3. Make a small incision at the base of the triangle
4. Place a tiny piece of dough at the incision, hold the tip of the triangle. Stretch the tip with the other hand and start rolling it up from the base towards the tip. The croissants look like this once rolled:

Brush and bake:

1. Cover with a plastic bag or place in a warm place for a couple of hours--the croissants are required to poof up a little.
2. Brush lightly with the egg wash prepared
3. Bake for about 15-18 minutes at 375 deg F
4. Serve with Jam (there is already a ton of butter in it:))