Laminates make bread look like cake

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kendalm on
In an attempt to better understand laminated pastry spring I am today left even more confused. If you take note of the two (really sad looking) pain aux chocolates the one on the left proofed for about 2.5 hours whereas the one on right proofed for 3.5-4 hours - both from the same dough under the same conditions (about 72f). In an attemot to figure out timing and oven temps to achieve maximum rise I intentionally tried baking several, actually 4 bakes from the same dough and expected the longer the proof, the greater the rise. Instead i found that as the dough rose and became more 'jiggly' as often stated by croissant experts, the opposite happened to the baked product. Generally most credible guides say to proof 3-4 hours and it appears at least in my case the shorter the better. I also have the same cross section of two croiisants where the earlier bake shows obvious rise and the second ... Pancake. What is going on here ? Very hard to understand what is going on inside this kind of dough. I thoroughly read a guide by txfamer who warns how underproofed croissants inhibit layer separation. Getting these things to pop is beginning to make bread look like cake !

I made croissants once in my life over 30 years ago so take the following with a big grain of salt. 

Could it be that the butter in between the layers got absorbed into the dough the longer you left it to proof? Especially when it was 72F. No butter between layers = flat croissants? Would proofing in the fridge help prevent that or if that makes the butter too hard for the croissants to proof properly, then finding a spot that is significantly cooler than room temperature but not as cold as a fridge, might work?

I am beginning the think that the way craoissants puff. Is just like bread. Gas in the very thin layers expanding bubbles that then force the layers apart. I always thought that somehow the gas was escaping the dough and arriving between layers and then forcing them apart but the more you think about it, if that happened the gas would further escape to the atmosphere. It has to be that when you see a well risen lamjnate that the spaces are there because a co2 bubble withing a very thin dough layer has gotten big enough to force layers apart. I am almost temoted to try laminating a standard bread dough and subjecting it to my usual proof times ... Maybe its time to call doctor bombay (remember bewitched), well doc.dough - betcha he has some interesting take on this !
Would be to bake a brioche dough like a regular loaf and work the lroofing times and temperature until an open crumb is attained ...this is getting interesting !

Getting the timing right with croissants is tricky, but I would say 3-4 hours is too long to proof at 72 degrees.  They should look wobbly, but an even better indicator is to look for layers separating and becoming visible.  Getting this right requires making a few batches and watching them closely.  At home, I let my dough rest in the fridge overnight, then shape the croissants and let them proof at room temp for about 1.5 --1.75 hrs.  During cold weather, I stick them in the oven and place a pot of boiling water on the bottom, with the lid cracked slightly.  This "proof box" shortens the time to about 1.25 hour, but you have to be careful not to raise the temp too much or the butter will leak out.  You clearly know how to laminate -- the pain au chocolat on the left looks very nice!  I think that if you shorten your proofing time, you will get better results.

Was really hoping for some advice - and glad you mentioned temp as proofing time and temperature go hand-in-hand. Also as mentioned the shorter proofed items spearated better (although not much). I used 8g ady and the thing I am still wondering is weather that was enough since afted 2 hourrs of proofing they were hardly larger amd far from jiggly. Maybe pushing the yeast level with decreased timing is worth a shot ? If one understands that bread springs up best when proofing times allow for the loaf to bake when there is maximum gas before that gas starts breaking gluten strands (that how i understand it) it all makes sense and a perfectly timed proof can usually pop up with dramatic power. However i try to imagine how the spaces between the dough layers fill with gas in a laminate. It makes sense that if you over proof a laminate that extensibility suffers but still, where is the expanding gas coming from - if perfectly proofed wouldnt the gas still be trapped in the dough and btw very thin dough layers ? Maybe it is...maybe the cavities we see in a nice 'honeycombed' croissant are indeed dough bubbles and not as i have been assuming butter layers separating. These are the things I want to understand better. As for lamination I am pretty happy with that aspect - I do a book fold and a simple fold which is technically 13 dough and 12 butter layer (i think) and they are as you observed pretty visible (you can see at least 10 so thats a positive)

Please keep in mind that croissants, even though we call them "pain," are not really bread.  They are yeasted pastries.  You have to take into account the large amount of butter that is included in the recipe and a very different technique required in the process.  It seems to me that you are applying bread-baking logic (flour, water, yeast and salt) to a product that's a lot more complex. For example, when baking croissants, water turns into steam and it pushes the laminated layers apart increasing the volume of the finished product. It's a different kind of raise from the one you get when baking a loaf of sourdough.

Im contesting that assumption ... If it is in fact an assumption. Yes its a yeasted pastry bit think about the fact that 10-15 layers of yeasted pastry can do what 80-100 layers of puff will do. Thats a testament to the role of the yeast. I am beginning to think that a puff is made up of cavities caused by warping layers amd thus the cavities represent where the butter used to be whereas in vienoise the cavities have forced the butter and fused two dough layers. Not saying I am right just trying to make sense of it all :)

I'm willing to be if you cut through a puff pastry it would collapse, do you think you'd get a cross section like this or would the layers push together as soon as the knife pushes down.  The puff is impressive but it also has a lot to do with many many more layers.  If they warp just a tad, then the many of those warps equal a noticeable rise but does it have the strength - I used to make puff and it's close to 100 layers verses really 10-15 depending on the folding technique.  I think the cavities here are nothing like puff, they must be dough bubbles and the layers are actually two layers of dough meeting and then absorbing the melted butter.  That's why you can slice right through a vienoise...just sayin' 

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kendalm on Mon, 10/30/2017 - 13:04

It wouldnt necessarily collapse (just looked at some pictures online) since the dough cooks and retains ots shape but i do think the rise occurs because the layers warp slightly and then multiply the warp by a large number and presto, vertical growth. I know you get really scientific and at the heart of the scientific method is skepticism so just throwing a skeptic angle on the whole thing. What if the common notion that we need to get good layers so that they separate well is really more about getting them fuse well? Thats a funky angle but its making more sense the more i think about it especially considering the top photo, those layers on the pain aux chocolate are pretty distinct - and let me just say, i friggen got very scientific during lamination they may as well been cnc'd on computerized machinery !
What i find is its best to read as many articles like thisbas possible and also watch tons of videos. Each one will have a variation of formula and method but the more you study the mlre you understand. So far i think the flour i am using is a good protein level (franine t5t bio) the shot I took with it i noticed better results especially laminating - everything began working like I see in videos where as prior to that there was too much resistance. So I am happy with the layer as you can see pretty defined in the pic. Im fairly confident that trick now is to acheive a final proof that is spot on in timing - I feally do think the mechanisms at play are veey similar to producing an open crumb loaf of bread. Maybe I am wrong but practice should reveal - thanks for the link !

my butt gets rounder - balloon like.  That is about all I know about laminated dough and I would like to forget that:-)  I inhale the stuff like candy... so it is a drug.

Happy baking

Since I started making them I find myself suddenly craving them and then I start planning fillings etc. I was never a croissant lover since most experiences I thonk of a cheap coffee shop ones - a few weeks ago I got them to rise just a tad in the correct fashion and they were practically inhaled. Gotta say now Im really fasxinated on whats happening with crumb and really intereated in wheather the layers are separating or fusing - if I can get them to 'honeycomb' as they say its all moot anyway !