genuine croissants from France. Although it takes time and effort, the results are totally worthwhile!
Prep Time: | 40 mins |
Cook Time: | 15 mins |
Additional Time: | 10 hrs 20 mins |
Total Time: | 11 hrs 15 mins |
Servings: | 12 |
Yield: | 12 croissants |
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
- 1 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup warm milk
- 2 teaspoons white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- ⅔ cup unsalted butter, chilled
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Combine warm water, yeast, and 1 teaspoon sugar in a small bowl. Let stand until yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam, about 5 minutes.
- Measure flour into a mixing bowl. Combine warm milk, 2 teaspoons sugar, and salt in a separate bowl; blend milk mixture, yeast mixture, and oil into flour. Mix well and knead until smooth. Cover, and let rise until over tripled in volume, about 3 hours.
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- Deflate gently, and let rise again until doubled, about another 3 hours.
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- Deflate dough and chill for 20 minutes.
- Massage butter until pliable, but not soft and oily. Pat dough into a 14×8-inch rectangle.
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- Smear butter over top two-thirds, leaving a 1/4-inch margin all around. Fold unbuttered third over middle third, and buttered top third down over that.
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- Turn 90 degrees, so that folds are to left and right. Roll out to a 14×6-inch rectangle. Fold in three again. Sprinkle lightly with flour, and put dough in a resealable plastic bag. Refrigerate for 2 hours.
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- Unwrap, sprinkle with flour, and deflate gently. Roll to a 14×6-inch rectangle, and fold again. Turn 90 degrees, and repeat. Wrap and chill 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C).
- To shape, roll dough out to a 20×5-inch rectangle. Cut in half crosswise, and chill half while shaping the other half. Roll out to a 15×5-inch rectangle. Cut into three 5×5-inch squares. Cut each square in half diagonally.
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- Roll each triangle lightly to elongate the point, and make it 7 inches long. Grab the other 2 points, and stretch them out slightly as you roll it up.
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- Place on a baking sheet, curving slightly. Let shaped croissants rise until puffy and light.
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- In a small bowl, beat together egg and 1 tablespoon water. Glaze croissants with egg wash.
- Bake in the preheated oven until crisp, flaky, and golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes.
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Nutrition Facts
Calories | 196 kcal |
Carbohydrate | 16 g |
Cholesterol | 46 mg |
Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
Protein | 3 g |
Saturated Fat | 7 g |
Sodium | 304 mg |
Sugars | 2 g |
Fat | 13 g |
Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I am certainly not French or a pastry chef. I am an at home baker so I can’t speak for the authenticity. I did use bread flour instead of regular flour and added more butter. I made the butter into a thin layer instead of spreading it around and I did laminate more than was called for. I did end up needing more flour. It was really soft and buttery, but not super sweet, which I like. My dad really liked it and so did I. Thank you for the recipe!!!
For what they are, they’re fine. The author doesn’t say that they’re professional croissants. I went to culinary school in France and learned how to make the real thing. The kitchen cook doesn’t want to get into that unless they’re very adventurous!
Good, patients on proofing. I shaped butter between 2 sheets of wax paper then chilled it.
I consider croissants a fairly advanced recipe, and I have to say they didn’t turn out quite how I’d have liked. I used salted butter, reducing the salt to 1 tsp rather than 1 1/2, but otherwise followed the recipe. My technique was relatively poor, but this was mostly due to the butter’s very uneven distribution. I also live in Canada, where all-purpose flour tends to have a somewhat higher gluten content–this probably also had an effect. I plan to try this again, but will likely bring the butter closer to room temperature before starting (with use of a freezer, as well as the fridge). I may also look at allowing them to proof before going into the oven in order to get better lift in the finished product. And if neither of those adjustments work, I will look at the flour I’m using. Overall, I liked the base-recipe, but I didn’t get what I was looking for.
I needed waaaayy more flour than what’s listed. They tasted ok, but we’re definitely not croissants.
I left it in the fridge over night and split the 11 hours over two days. It came out great.
This is not the recipe to start with if your just getting into cooking, like me. I believe I went worng with using yeast that might have been expired ( is this a thing, the dough did not rise). Overall a very time comsuming recipe but it was fun to cook for my wife and family. I will defently do this again the fresh yeast.
Thnks
i won’t make it again – takes over 11 hours from start to finish – I could fly to France in less time! I wanted to try though and I’ll go to the market and buy them from now on.
Made the croissants, haven’t tried them yet, but while baking them I did manage to fill my house with smoke. The butter ran off the sheet down into the oven and the rest was history. Word of advice, us a RIMMED baking sheet!!
Made them today for the first time. Was too eager to see the result, didn’t follow the steps. They turned out to be fabulous anyway.
Yes and yes
I’ve made these three times now, and I (and my family) love them! My only problem is, I can’t seem to get them all a uniform size. I suppose that’s just down to practice…
This was my first attempt at making croissants and it generally went well. These yeilds a crisp, flaky cruise and a fluffy, moist interior. My only complaints are that they turned out a little bland and fairly greasy. Next time, I’ll use one sick of butter and use the full amount of salt, even with salted butter. Here are the things I did this time: I added an additional 3Tbs of flour because so many people said that the dough was a sloppy mess. I mixed the dough in the bread machine, removed the paddle and let the dough so it’s rises in there, since our house is really cool this time of year. For the butter, I softened it and then rolled it into an 7.75″x7.75″ square between two pieces of wax paper. I put that in the fridge while the dough was doing it’s thing so it was firm by the forest roll-out. That worked really well. I wanted to serve these for breakfast and wanted them fresh, so I put half of them in the fridge for a slow rise. They went in at 6p, and by 7a, they’d hardly risen at all. The other six, I stuck in the deep freeze at 6p and left them there until I went to bed, around midnight. I pulled them out and set the tray on the counter to the and rise overnight (I use this method with cinnamon rolls all the time) and when it was time to put them in the oven at 7a, they were perfect. This means that I can make several batches, flash freeze them and make them on short notice, which makes everything easier. seems like a keeper to me
I made the dough like 3 times because it didnt appear to be rising, much less tripling in size, and I thought something was wrong. I went ahead and continued with the recipe, and everything ended up turning out great! I added some chocolate chips as I was rolling them because that’s the best way to eat them, in my opinion. In the future, I think I’ll add a bit less salt and cook for a lesser amount of time, because the bottoms were a bit too done. All in all, great recipe, even though I thought I was screwing it up every step of the way.
Way off on the liquid/flour ratio. It comes out like pancake batter. Almost had to double the flour to hey a smooth dough.
This was my first attempt at making croissants, and I am glad to say they turned out great! Delicious, buttery, and with a crisp, flaky outer crust – yum! I did need to add at least 1/2 cup more flour to get the dough to be workable (and not thin like pancake batter). I think the most important things to remember when making these is to stay calm and be patient. Also, the folding and chilling steps are so important so don’t skip those – that’s where the patience comes in! 🙂 I will definitely be making these again.
The recipe is very good. However, the instructions for folding in the butter were not very clear. So I used this dough recipe with all the amounts, and watched this youtube video on how to roll them shape them and put the butter in. The combination was great!
I made the mistake of trying to bake them on flat cooking sheets without a lip. Some of the butter melted out and dripped onto the bottom of the oven, ultimately catching on fire. I would definitely recommend using a baking sheet with a lip to catch that butter! Despite this, I switched them and was still pleased with the final result. I thought it was interesting that the outsides were a little crispy when they came out of the oven, but they really softened up a day later, which I enjoyed more.
I made this with gluten free flour. They actually didn’t turn out to bad. I had to let the dough set longer and had to break it down into smaller pieces when rolling out but over all they turned out pretty well for gluten free.
The instructions are not clear enough. There are steps missing.