Third Time Lucky - Croissant and Pain au Jambon
It's the third time lucky for me making croissant. Well, sort of.
I think my third time yielded decent croissants but they are still far from what I want to achieve. I'm now on the mission to practice making croissants every week until I can make it well. My partner is quite pleased to learn this, as well as our neighbors who are more than happy to be guinea pigs.
There are some issues with this bake. The temperature was too warm to work with butter and dough lamination. So, I ended up chilling the laminated dough overnight, then shape the croissants first thing in the morning when room temp was around 27C. The dough was fully fermented and butter was set, which made it a little difficult to roll. This could contribute to my not-so-flaky croissants.
I used the recipe from Bourke Street Bakery cookbook and halved the recipe. The recipe used pre-ferment and has about 58% hydration. I also made pain au jambon (inspired by the same menu item at Tartine Bakery) using half of the croissants. Pain au jambon tasted very good. Because ham and cheese were rolled inside croissants, it infused the flavours into the pastry and created nice internal moisture, the salty buttery goodness.
Recipes and more pictures can be found here.
With me-made strawberry jam, perfect for breakfast
Pain au jambon, inspired by Tartine Bakery
my croissant and Mr Chad Robinson's
Sue
Comments
I give up on making croissants during very warm and hot weather when butter softens easily. They always turn out very tough which I think results from using too much dusting of flour to roll. I get better flakes when I dust flour little as possible to prevent the dough from sticking. I always make sure to brush off excess flour. The best temperature to work is when it's 18 C to 21 C. I use the freezer to chill the dough after wrapping the dough in plastic.
I don't let the dough ferment before lamination, contrary to what other recipes say. It always backfires on me, resulting in crunchy crust and layers. I prefer to laminate right after the ingredients are mixed. Mix the ingredients and knead a little until the dough stops sticking to the counter. I use water instead of milk because it produces flakier texture.
Fourth time is a charm.
Yes, there'll be a lots of croissants in the houselhold for the next several weeks. My partner is a cyclist as well as our neighbour, so I'll have lots of helps from them eating away my experiments. Plus, I only do half-batch, only 9-10 croissants is quite easy to handle for those carb-craving clyclists.
Cheers,
Sue
http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com
You might not be satisfied with them, yet, Sue but for someone who has made croissants only three times, those are pretty darn good. And that is three times more than I have ever made them! All the best with your quest.
Syd
Thanks Syd. That's very nice of you to say:)
Cheers,
Sue
http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com
Sue, Your Croissants look beautiful, the color is just perfect.. Work on it, you will get there..
Thanks Khalid...I'm on a mission, hopefully, the possible one:)
Sue
http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com