Hi! I've been making croissants once a week for a year and a half, and I've learned other things, maybe that might interest you (sorry if my English isn't great I'm French). As you said the flour, super important, you have to get to know it to be able to have an idea of the hydration, in France it is often around 50%, a less hydrated dough will give a prettier result but the croissant will be less tasty, drier, the more hydrated croissant will stay fresh for a few hours longer. The milk mainly affects the taste and the color of the crumb, I also find that it gives a less good honeycomb. I often use 1/3 milk and 2/3 water. The salt, 2% sometimes 1.8%, the sugar caremelizes the crust, but also attacks the yeast and reduces the volume of the croissant. 12 to see 13% of sugar seems to me good (knowing that we can put 2% of honey for the taste and the conservation) the butter in the dough adds ease for the rolling, and a little taste, between 5% and 10% in the dough is good. Personally I limit myself to that for the ingredients, the sourdough and the fermented dough are still too advanced, I need to know the yeast better. I saw a comment that said you should lower to 3 / 4mm so I advise not to go below 3.5, because otherwise you destroy the sheets. 4mm is good, even 5 in reality. After you have to have a very cold dough because if you are on 5mm and your dough retracts, you may be at 6 or even 7mm, if your dough is cold it does not shrink (do not hesitate to put 3 or 4 times the dough in the freezer at the time of the final roll-out) It is very important that the dough is between 1 and 4 ° C before putting the butter, the idea is to keep as much as possible the power of the yeast for the final growth. Personally if my dough comes out at 24 ° C from kneading, I grow 15min I put in the freezer 30min and then in the fridge, so that it passes as quickly as 4 ° C, if it comes out at 30 ° I put it directly in the freezer. Also it is important to put the dough in the freezer between turns, for 15min, no more. Often when we spread, we can have the impression that the butter is breaking, in fact it only breaks on the ends, the inside is perfect, and it will be these sides that we will cut when displaying final. As you know the secret of croissants is the cold (I recommend Sébastien Lagrue's videos, it's in French but there must be subtitles!) For growth, I would rather recommend 27/28 ° C for 2h30 max, but I don't know how to react with the butter in the United States, and it seems to work well so it's cool! here I am still learning but I hope it can help you, have a good day!
I feel so lucky to have found you. I tried making croissants only twice and I am in love with it. Thank you so much for putting together so much useful information. Really appreciate your effort!
Thanks so much for your experiments. I'm french and moved in USA and i have a hard time finding the right ingredients. I'm excited trying again with all of your advices. I love learning.
perfectly thorough yet concise as I’ve come to expect. i can’t wait for this channel to pop off, i feel like getting youtube to sweep you up in the algorithm is like starting a fire without a lighter. just gotta keep the friction going, hopefully the kindling catches eventually. in the meantime i’ll revel in the absurd quality of these uploads for the view count.
Love your video! It’s a treasure of helpful information, but most important, encouragement and inspiration. “50 batches”…it’s a lot of time, money and energy spent on croissants, but that’s the way to master a concept. Good for you! Thank you for generously sharing what you’ve learn on your journey.
Thanks for sharing all these tips, I have been searching for them as I have failed in making crossiant for more than 10 times I guess. At least now I know what my problems are.
Oh nice, another fellow crazed croissantier. Props to your point about the dimensions of the dough/butter block for the lock-in not really mattering. It's more about getting even thicknesses and butter dispersement than precise measurements of area.
Thanks for the video. I am at trial number 4 and will for sure not reach my aspiration at trial 10. I loved watching your video. I found it exactly at the right time. Greetings from Germany.
Love this video, and love this comment section. Everybody here seems to be on a similar personal mission. I thought I was knowledgeable about croissants after trying them 13 times orso, but some people in the comments here are on a whole nother level of insight for home bakers🤯. Thanks
Hi, thank you for sharing these valuable findings. I love how you learned from many iterations and failures and kudos for trying 50 batches of croissants and never gave up! I guess the next interesting question would be how to iterate with small batch size to reduce wastage.
There are some decent recipes with 250-300g flour as the base. The gourmetier croissant recipe calls for about 300g flour, I believe. It's just a little trickier to work with a smaller quantity of dough, but in general, everything stays the same.
Great Video. Also watched the other two on croissants in quick succession. A few thoughts. You seem to be getting lots of butter leakage while cooking. While it might be a bit of underproofing, It might also have to do with the thickness of the final roll out, especially with only a single and a double. Final roll out for a single-double recipe at 5mm is pretty thick. It will give you nice layer definition but since the butter layers are so thick, you are much more likely to end up with pools of butter while baking. 3-4mm will probably give you a better result for that. This is especially true if you have a greater lock-in % of butter, 30-33% of dough weight, rather than 25% that seems to be used by most bakeries doing a single-double. If you were doing more folds, you could get away with a thicker final roll out. One thing I find underrated is alternative folding schemes. My favourite current one is 2 singles and a half fold. Gives slightly more layers than 2 doubles, while making the final roll out much easier. I also find that avoiding book folds gives more consistency in the final laminated sheet of dough. Less chance of either gaping holes, or dense areas along the sheet. Also alternatives if you only have strong flour is to increase sugar and fat in the dough, making the dough more loose and more extensible through fat. Weaker flours can benefit from egg in the formula. Egg seems to have a positive effect on volume, must be due to the protein within the egg. For the butter block, conditioning it by bashing it with a rolling pin can make even wetter butters more plastic, you just have to be more careful for refrigeration or freezing. I also like to make the butter block quite big and thinner (Buttermilk Pantry does this). Allows you to shorten the time rolling out for the first turn, and allows you to do your first folds back to back. Some other resources you may have not seen are Jimmy Griffin's "The Art of Lamination", which is a great ressource for the more technical aspects of laminated dough, and a good recap of existing ideas. If you speak or understand french, Sebastien Lagrue (World Champion for his Pain au Chocolat) has a youtube channel that has some pretty good info. Also www.bakersjournal.com/quintessential-croissants-4586/ has some good info.
Awesome info, thanks. I recommend 25 layers mostly because that seems to be what my favorite homemade recipes do and get a good honeycomb, I trust their recipes. But the thickness having a big impact makes sense, it's a shame that most recipes don't call for how thick you should roll the dough. I experienced a pretty wide variety of lots of leaking vs. minimal leaking, granted I was obviously testing lots of things and my recipe was not consistent. :P 2 singles and a half fold sounds awesome too, very manageable. I was curious about egg too, I see it's more common in chocolate croissants, where I do notice adding the cocoa does seem to make the dough weaker. I'm also a big fan of big thin butter blocks, I'm always jealous of the fancy French butter that comes pre-cut in large sheets. Question about conditioning butter by beating it...what does that actually do? Does it just beat out air, or does it do something else? Obviously it works, but plenty of recipes don't call for beating/conditioning and seem to get good results.
@@FoodieFindings Thickness of layers is something that comes up more once you've had a few tries. Beyond butter leakage, it does have an effect of the chew, especially if you are using strong flour. Thicker dough layers with strong flour can make a pretty chewy croissant. But that is a matter of preference more than anything. We home bakers generally roll out fairly thick because, well, rolling out the final sheet thin without screwing up the entire process is hard, lol. Also, one other thing to keep in mind when thinking of the final thickness for you croissant; If you use the 5mm spacers for the roll out you will most certainly have a final thickness greater than 5mm when the dough relaxes and retracts. So If your final target is 5mm, shoot for thinner while rolling. It is important to adjust the dough to your process. The reason I started to use the 2 singles and 1 half fold was because the double-single did not yield enough layers(find it more crunchy than crispy)and the others (2 doubles, 3 singles) were very difficult on the final roll out. You can adjust hydration and fat to makes these easier to roll out, but there are trade offs. With the 2 singles-1half, you can roll out your dough fairly long for your half fold, so that you already have the height for your croissants before beginning your final roll out. That way you rarely have to roll against a seam. Makes rolling by hand much easier. Bakeries seem to love the double-single because its much more efficient. I'm pretty sure that trend towards having really long and narrow triangles (ex 6.5 cm x 35) sheeted quite thin is a means of creating a fuller honeycomb while skipping the extra fold of the three singles. For the butter, its seems that bashing it does homogenize the texture, especially for butters that have been kept in the freezer. You alluded to it in one of your other videos, that the crystalline structure of the butter is being affected by both the force from bashing as well as the change in temperature. Not really sure about the science but seems similar to chocolate tempering, with agitation and temperature and aligning fat crystals? Most of the plastic properties seem to be related to the original churning and production of the butter, but these actions seem to help. As for why it works without doing this, I'm guessing it may be related to qualities of the butter you are using. I used a french butter once (not a beurre de tourage, regular isigny 82%)and just shaping the butter block was enough for clean lamination. With our domestic (Canadian) butter, even those with 82-84% butterfat, without some conditioning, the butter performed poorly especially at lower working temperatures. The pliability of the plugra and kerrygold just out of the fridge is just not there for the butters I am used to, tending to be pretty brittle without some work.
@@Vonnegut99 I found a super neat article from a Facebook group that explains "butter manufactured with poor macro milkfat crystal structure...can be improved by applying thorough sheer forces, such as creaming in a stand mixer". Cool stuff. I also definitely experienced "If you use the 5mm spacers for the roll out you will most certainly have a final thickness greater than 5mm when the dough relaxes and retracts", very true. As you say, rolling out perfectly evenly thin is really hard anyways. I love all the little tips to making croissants perfectly. It's the classic Marco Pierre White thing - "Perfection is lots of little things done well."
I spent all day today trying to make my first babka with my mother. I definitely bit off more than I could chew, making double the recipe and attempting to laminate the butter instead of just mixing it like the recipe called for, despite never having made babka, or laminated butter. I also really wanted to use wild yeast, via sourdough starter, because all of the bread that my mother and I have baked this year has been that way. Things seemed fine through the bulk fermentation but once I got to lamination and shaping it was an unsalvageable mess. I’m really upset about it, but watching this is helping me to move forward.
Thank you for your methodical approach and well organized video! May I ask if you've found a good baking schedule for fresh croissants in the morning? I'm considering freezing directly after rolling, and then defrosting/proofing overnight so that I can bake within 30-45 minutes of waking up.
Patience is the first necessary requirement when attempting to take on croissant "mastery". Easily frustrated? Learn to adapt, grasshopper. Patient, you must! Lol. Otherwise, best to give it up and visit the neighborhood bakery - assuming that's even available - when the croissant urge hits. 🥰
The most comforting croissant tutorial ever. I still haven't nailed it but I do have the tendancy to adjust to my own recipe after many failed attempts. Eventually it works. My next batch I will change things and go from there. One more problem I am facing lately is that I am loosing most of the butter during baking. Hence they are not as buttery as they should be. Any thoughts?
Have you checked Julia Child’s recipe? It almost doesn’t have kneading but have multiple long proofing, doesn’t include butter in dough but some oil instead, which is totally different from popular youtube recipes. And it still works. Interesting to know how so.
First thanks for sharing your long road with croissant trip most of the things that you mentioned happened with me and still i didn't fix the crumbs problem in fact you encourage me to give it the 14th tries 😂 hopefully that the crumbs will appear but is it make any different if i use a oven with a-fan i mean i have both small one without fan and a large one with a fan
Hey man, I'm a big croissant fanatic too. The collapsed honeycomb is often caused by the center not being completely set when baking. Try baking for a few minutes longer. If you are worried about burning the outside, just turn down the temp.
Awesome. I have definitely leaned toward longer bake times, I see lots of recipes calling for only 15-20 minutes of baking and that seems so unrealistic to me. Glad to know that long bake time seems like a good thing.
@@FoodieFindings 15-20 minutes may be a recipe that's been adapted from a professional kitchen with a professional oven. That, or they like their croissants far too pale. 25-30 minutes at temps lower than 400F is a decent time range.
I've been making croissants with domestic ingredients here in Ontario, Canada, and my most successful (ok, least problematic) batches were made with Président butter. Though their marketing doesn't directly state a fat percentage, I've found Président butter to be more shatter resistant than the 84% fat butters produced by Stirling Creamery and Cows Creamery. That said, my most persistent issues with croissants stem from the dough, not the butter. Canadian flour is something else.
Japan Kneader Company Ltd. has recently come up with a portable dough sheeter/laminator for the home cook. It's fairly pricey. Have you considered giving it a test? Professional French baker (and TH-camr) Sebastien Lagrue is recommending it for croissants.
Hi, very nice tips. I make croissants every week, for about 2 to 3 years. They are gorgeous outside, but the crumb looks like your bad examples. The layers stick together, it seems kind of raw inside even though they are brown outside. I have been suffering with that for a long time and confess I do not know the cause.I believe is something related with the rolling or baking. I am doing tests here all the time to improve. If you discover the reason, please tell me. I loved your video, tks a lot!
If I may, the butter's name is not pronounced PLUG-ras but PLU-gras. As in, plus gras, which is French for "more fat." Other than that, superb instruction.
My dough cracked open and the butter came out. Weather isn't that cold though I have my ac at 24 located in the tropics. It's impossible to work manually.
Hi. Sorry its about 2 years for me to find your video. Recently i baked croissant and i have conventional gas oven, the issues i face eveytime is the color is there ( golden brown ) but when i cut it open, inner part still not baked properly. What did i do wrong ? P.s i bake @180 °C ish for 20 - 30 min.
Hello a new member I see this good video however I failed every time doing croissant because the dough is resistant me to roll it I need to know where’s my mistake
That was my problem for the longest time. Here’s a few tips- Make sure to reach window pane consistency after kneading, make sure your dough is hydrated enough, dry dough tends to spring back faster. Rest it in the freezer and then the fridge in between turns.
That is overproofing. It rises too much then collapses when baking. They rise tremendously when baking. You don’t want them to reach full voume during proofing according to Bake it Up a Notch. And don’t hatr, but mine came out perfect my first time, but my second time was a horrible failure. So now I am trying to figure out what I did right the first time. 00 zero flour, earth balance sticks amd freezing some parts instead of hours of hours of proofing. Second time AP miyoko Earth Balance mix and more traditioanl type resting periods. This time I might try it with a bit of silken tofu to replace the egg yolk. (Mine are all vegan, hence the “odd” ingredients.)
I think it has an impact on flavor and also helps develop the gluten in a good way. Some even call for freezing the rolled and shaped croissants before baking, so to a certain degree it's personal preference. At the very least, chilling the dough until its cold makes it better to work with.
Most margarines won't work for croissants due to the low melting point. Same goes for coconut oil, which is almost liquid at room temperature (good luck laminating that). You need to find a good vegan butter alternative like "melt buttery sticks" in the US, or the best one I've tried: Naturli Vegan Block, which is available in Europe, or can be found imported in specialised shops. Your other option is to buy professional margarine used for croissant and other pastries.
That was my first time making croissant today. l tried to make it with sourdough(this was the first mistake l think). l used french butter elle vire. The butter got leaked. Am l the only one who experienced this trouble?
Yes, the early batches taste good, but if we wanted crap croissants, we would just go to the supermarket 😅 hooray for the people watching this who ‘get it’!
Very interesting and useful tips despite the psycho face (which, indeed, is not needed at all... Looks like you have someone with a gun behind the camera. Just lower your eyebrows, close some more your eyes and move a little more your head. Widen your mouth. Btw, have you been on military training? You're too rigid. Just relax. The camera won't kill you. Maybe the guy with the gun behind it will. But not the camera. hahaha)
The ending statement crack me up.. success happen after 50 failed attempt. I am on my third failure, with the same matra of not following someone recipe, finding my own path to achieve the same result. I hope i will not reach 50 attempt too🫢🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
croissants are important in life: they teach you humility
Amen!
Hi! I've been making croissants once a week for a year and a half, and I've learned other things, maybe that might interest you (sorry if my English isn't great I'm French). As you said the flour, super important, you have to get to know it to be able to have an idea of the hydration, in France it is often around 50%, a less hydrated dough will give a prettier result but the croissant will be less tasty, drier, the more hydrated croissant will stay fresh for a few hours longer. The milk mainly affects the taste and the color of the crumb, I also find that it gives a less good honeycomb. I often use 1/3 milk and 2/3 water. The salt, 2% sometimes 1.8%, the sugar caremelizes the crust, but also attacks the yeast and reduces the volume of the croissant. 12 to see 13% of sugar seems to me good (knowing that we can put 2% of honey for the taste and the conservation) the butter in the dough adds ease for the rolling, and a little taste, between 5% and 10% in the dough is good. Personally I limit myself to that for the ingredients, the sourdough and the fermented dough are still too advanced, I need to know the yeast better. I saw a comment that said you should lower to 3 / 4mm so I advise not to go below 3.5, because otherwise you destroy the sheets. 4mm is good, even 5 in reality. After you have to have a very cold dough because if you are on 5mm and your dough retracts, you may be at 6 or even 7mm, if your dough is cold it does not shrink (do not hesitate to put 3 or 4 times the dough in the freezer at the time of the final roll-out)
It is very important that the dough is between 1 and 4 ° C before putting the butter, the idea is to keep as much as possible the power of the yeast for the final growth. Personally if my dough comes out at 24 ° C from kneading, I grow 15min I put in the freezer 30min and then in the fridge, so that it passes as quickly as 4 ° C, if it comes out at 30 ° I put it directly in the freezer. Also it is important to put the dough in the freezer between turns, for 15min, no more. Often when we spread, we can have the impression that the butter is breaking, in fact it only breaks on the ends, the inside is perfect, and it will be these sides that we will cut when displaying final. As you know the secret of croissants is the cold (I recommend Sébastien Lagrue's videos, it's in French but there must be subtitles!)
For growth, I would rather recommend 27/28 ° C for 2h30 max, but I don't know how to react with the butter in the United States, and it seems to work well so it's cool! here I am still learning but I hope it can help you, have a good day!
Milles mercis! Ça complète bien le vidéo. Et c’est super utile !!
Nice suggestion.Thank you
Definitely recommend Sebastien Lagrue’s videos on croissants too. The temperatures are so important. I learned it the hard way.
Hi Camus.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us!
It’s anyway you can share your recipe as well?
Very nice of you to share - thanks 👍
I like your murderous glare during the narration. Epic
lol
😂
Why doesn’t this video have a million views 😍😍😍😍 thank you so much!
holy crap this video is way too underrated
Great information. Really useful and well presented. Thank you for doing all this work!!
I feel so lucky to have found you. I tried making croissants only twice and I am in love with it. Thank you so much for putting together so much useful information. Really appreciate your effort!
This video and your advice are so spot on for the beleaguered croissant journeyperson. Thanks for taking the time to share wisdom and encouragement.
Such a valuable video. Can't thank you enough for your efforts !
Thanks so much for your experiments. I'm french and moved in USA and i have a hard time finding the right ingredients. I'm excited trying again with all of your advices. I love learning.
perfectly thorough yet concise as I’ve come to expect.
i can’t wait for this channel to pop off, i feel like getting youtube to sweep you up in the algorithm is like starting a fire without a lighter. just gotta keep the friction going, hopefully the kindling catches eventually. in the meantime i’ll revel in the absurd quality of these uploads for the view count.
Love your video! It’s a treasure of helpful information, but most important, encouragement and inspiration. “50 batches”…it’s a lot of time, money and energy spent on croissants, but that’s the way to master a concept. Good for you! Thank you for generously sharing what you’ve learn on your journey.
im so happy for your success and thank you for all the experiment you ve done! cheers from home baker in HongKong!
Thanks for sharing all these tips, I have been searching for them as I have failed in making crossiant for more than 10 times I guess. At least now I know what my problems are.
Your video is exactly what I’m looking for!! Thank you!
I have been looking for months for this type of content, as many of us, cooking is a one way journey.
Greetings from Argentina.
Excellent video!!! I tried different recipies, I forgot how many, and still not satisfied with the results. So I´ll keep trying.
Oh nice, another fellow crazed croissantier. Props to your point about the dimensions of the dough/butter block for the lock-in not really mattering. It's more about getting even thicknesses and butter dispersement than precise measurements of area.
Thank you so much , you helped me a lot , God bless you also I like the way you explain things, made me memorize things so fast
This channel definitely deserves way more subscribers
Thanks for the video. I am at trial number 4 and will for sure not reach my aspiration at trial 10. I loved watching your video. I found it exactly at the right time. Greetings from Germany.
Haha..."smashing that thing like it owes him money"...very good, you made me laugh, and earned a brownie point and a subscription!
Can’t thank you enough for making this video. 👍👍👍
Tks for your sharing. Its valuable for me ❤
Reaaally really helpful!!!! Thanks a lot for this, i will be trying again soon
This video it’s really helpful.. thanks mate! 💪🏻
Woow. Thanks for the great tips. Worked out for me. 🥺 i tried it today. Wish i could post photo here to show you oh gosh. Followed all your tips
Love this video, and love this comment section. Everybody here seems to be on a similar personal mission. I thought I was knowledgeable about croissants after trying them 13 times orso, but some people in the comments here are on a whole nother level of insight for home bakers🤯. Thanks
Thanks a lot for your tips!
Very useful video! Thanks a lot
Great video. Thank you 👍
Thank you for an excellent video! Super helpful.
My favourite comment: "He's smashing that thing like it owes him money" 🤣
This vid is helping me a lot, thank you very muchhh
Jesus this vid is so amazing. Awesome job thanks so much
Hi, thank you for sharing these valuable findings. I love how you learned from many iterations and failures and kudos for trying 50 batches of croissants and never gave up! I guess the next interesting question would be how to iterate with small batch size to reduce wastage.
There are some decent recipes with 250-300g flour as the base. The gourmetier croissant recipe calls for about 300g flour, I believe. It's just a little trickier to work with a smaller quantity of dough, but in general, everything stays the same.
on my croissant journey too. getting better at it but still long way to go!
Very very informative 👍
Excellent and very friendly video
Bottom line stay calm and take your time when making croissants
Thank you now I got idea why my croissant made it looks the same the mistake you do
6:13 “most recipes overcomplicate”. Lmaoooo 😂. Your whole video instruction is a complication in itself to the max even an OCD will run away! 😂😂😂😂😂.
Great Video. Also watched the other two on croissants in quick succession. A few thoughts. You seem to be getting lots of butter leakage while cooking. While it might be a bit of underproofing, It might also have to do with the thickness of the final roll out, especially with only a single and a double. Final roll out for a single-double recipe at 5mm is pretty thick. It will give you nice layer definition but since the butter layers are so thick, you are much more likely to end up with pools of butter while baking. 3-4mm will probably give you a better result for that. This is especially true if you have a greater lock-in % of butter, 30-33% of dough weight, rather than 25% that seems to be used by most bakeries doing a single-double. If you were doing more folds, you could get away with a thicker final roll out.
One thing I find underrated is alternative folding schemes. My favourite current one is 2 singles and a half fold. Gives slightly more layers than 2 doubles, while making the final roll out much easier. I also find that avoiding book folds gives more consistency in the final laminated sheet of dough. Less chance of either gaping holes, or dense areas along the sheet. Also alternatives if you only have strong flour is to increase sugar and fat in the dough, making the dough more loose and more extensible through fat. Weaker flours can benefit from egg in the formula. Egg seems to have a positive effect on volume, must be due to the protein within the egg.
For the butter block, conditioning it by bashing it with a rolling pin can make even wetter butters more plastic, you just have to be more careful for refrigeration or freezing. I also like to make the butter block quite big and thinner (Buttermilk Pantry does this). Allows you to shorten the time rolling out for the first turn, and allows you to do your first folds back to back.
Some other resources you may have not seen are Jimmy Griffin's "The Art of Lamination", which is a great ressource for the more technical aspects of laminated dough, and a good recap of existing ideas. If you speak or understand french, Sebastien Lagrue (World Champion for his Pain au Chocolat) has a youtube channel that has some pretty good info. Also www.bakersjournal.com/quintessential-croissants-4586/ has some good info.
Awesome info, thanks.
I recommend 25 layers mostly because that seems to be what my favorite homemade recipes do and get a good honeycomb, I trust their recipes. But the thickness having a big impact makes sense, it's a shame that most recipes don't call for how thick you should roll the dough. I experienced a pretty wide variety of lots of leaking vs. minimal leaking, granted I was obviously testing lots of things and my recipe was not consistent. :P 2 singles and a half fold sounds awesome too, very manageable.
I was curious about egg too, I see it's more common in chocolate croissants, where I do notice adding the cocoa does seem to make the dough weaker.
I'm also a big fan of big thin butter blocks, I'm always jealous of the fancy French butter that comes pre-cut in large sheets. Question about conditioning butter by beating it...what does that actually do? Does it just beat out air, or does it do something else? Obviously it works, but plenty of recipes don't call for beating/conditioning and seem to get good results.
@@FoodieFindings Thickness of layers is something that comes up more once you've had a few tries. Beyond butter leakage, it does have an effect of the chew, especially if you are using strong flour. Thicker dough layers with strong flour can make a pretty chewy croissant. But that is a matter of preference more than anything. We home bakers generally roll out fairly thick because, well, rolling out the final sheet thin without screwing up the entire process is hard, lol. Also, one other thing to keep in mind when thinking of the final thickness for you croissant; If you use the 5mm spacers for the roll out you will most certainly have a final thickness greater than 5mm when the dough relaxes and retracts. So If your final target is 5mm, shoot for thinner while rolling.
It is important to adjust the dough to your process. The reason I started to use the 2 singles and 1 half fold was because the double-single did not yield enough layers(find it more crunchy than crispy)and the others (2 doubles, 3 singles) were very difficult on the final roll out. You can adjust hydration and fat to makes these easier to roll out, but there are trade offs. With the 2 singles-1half, you can roll out your dough fairly long for your half fold, so that you already have the height for your croissants before beginning your final roll out. That way you rarely have to roll against a seam. Makes rolling by hand much easier.
Bakeries seem to love the double-single because its much more efficient. I'm pretty sure that trend towards having really long and narrow triangles (ex 6.5 cm x 35) sheeted quite thin is a means of creating a fuller honeycomb while skipping the extra fold of the three singles.
For the butter, its seems that bashing it does homogenize the texture, especially for butters that have been kept in the freezer. You alluded to it in one of your other videos, that the crystalline structure of the butter is being affected by both the force from bashing as well as the change in temperature. Not really sure about the science but seems similar to chocolate tempering, with agitation and temperature and aligning fat crystals? Most of the plastic properties seem to be related to the original churning and production of the butter, but these actions seem to help. As for why it works without doing this, I'm guessing it may be related to qualities of the butter you are using. I used a french butter once (not a beurre de tourage, regular isigny 82%)and just shaping the butter block was enough for clean lamination. With our domestic (Canadian) butter, even those with 82-84% butterfat, without some conditioning, the butter performed poorly especially at lower working temperatures. The pliability of the plugra and kerrygold just out of the fridge is just not there for the butters I am used to, tending to be pretty brittle without some work.
@@Vonnegut99 I found a super neat article from a Facebook group that explains "butter manufactured with poor macro milkfat crystal structure...can be improved by applying thorough sheer forces, such as creaming in a stand mixer". Cool stuff.
I also definitely experienced "If you use the 5mm spacers for the roll out you will most certainly have a final thickness greater than 5mm when the dough relaxes and retracts", very true. As you say, rolling out perfectly evenly thin is really hard anyways.
I love all the little tips to making croissants perfectly. It's the classic Marco Pierre White thing - "Perfection is lots of little things done well."
You are absolutely right
I spent all day today trying to make my first babka with my mother. I definitely bit off more than I could chew, making double the recipe and attempting to laminate the butter instead of just mixing it like the recipe called for, despite never having made babka, or laminated butter. I also really wanted to use wild yeast, via sourdough starter, because all of the bread that my mother and I have baked this year has been that way. Things seemed fine through the bulk fermentation but once I got to lamination and shaping it was an unsalvageable mess. I’m really upset about it, but watching this is helping me to move forward.
Thank you!
wow, very helpful content here
Thank you for your methodical approach and well organized video! May I ask if you've found a good baking schedule for fresh croissants in the morning? I'm considering freezing directly after rolling, and then defrosting/proofing overnight so that I can bake within 30-45 minutes of waking up.
Love this guy..
I never follow a recipe exactly I have to know the heart of the process and go from there
Patience is the first necessary requirement when attempting to take on croissant "mastery".
Easily frustrated? Learn to adapt, grasshopper. Patient, you must! Lol.
Otherwise, best to give it up and visit the neighborhood bakery - assuming that's even available - when the croissant urge hits. 🥰
The most comforting croissant tutorial ever. I still haven't nailed it but I do have the tendancy to adjust to my own recipe after many failed attempts. Eventually it works. My next batch I will change things and go from there.
One more problem I am facing lately is that I am loosing most of the butter during baking. Hence they are not as buttery as they should be. Any thoughts?
I've read that losing butter during baking means they are under proofed
may i also add the shortcrust/ puff pastry technique of chilling the proofed croissant for 20-30 minutes before shoving them in the oven
Have you checked Julia Child’s recipe?
It almost doesn’t have kneading but have multiple long proofing, doesn’t include butter in dough but some oil instead, which is totally different from popular youtube recipes. And it still works. Interesting to know how so.
I’m getting a Silence of the Lambs vibe. 🦋😬
First thanks for sharing your long road with croissant trip most of the things that you mentioned happened with me and still i didn't fix the crumbs problem in fact you encourage me to give it the 14th tries 😂 hopefully that the crumbs will appear but is it make any different if i use a oven with a-fan i mean i have both small one without fan and a large one with a fan
I subscribe your channel.. this video is very good thanks for this
Hey man, I'm a big croissant fanatic too. The collapsed honeycomb is often caused by the center not being completely set when baking. Try baking for a few minutes longer. If you are worried about burning the outside, just turn down the temp.
Awesome. I have definitely leaned toward longer bake times, I see lots of recipes calling for only 15-20 minutes of baking and that seems so unrealistic to me. Glad to know that long bake time seems like a good thing.
@@FoodieFindings 15-20 minutes may be a recipe that's been adapted from a professional kitchen with a professional oven. That, or they like their croissants far too pale. 25-30 minutes at temps lower than 400F is a decent time range.
You answered almost all my questions. When I baked mine, butter melted, and I wonder why?is it normal?
I've been making croissants with domestic ingredients here in Ontario, Canada, and my most successful (ok, least problematic) batches were made with Président butter. Though their marketing doesn't directly state a fat percentage, I've found Président butter to be more shatter resistant than the 84% fat butters produced by Stirling Creamery and Cows Creamery.
That said, my most persistent issues with croissants stem from the dough, not the butter. Canadian flour is something else.
Japan Kneader Company Ltd. has recently come up with a portable dough sheeter/laminator for the home cook. It's fairly pricey. Have you considered giving it a test? Professional French baker (and TH-camr) Sebastien Lagrue is recommending it for croissants.
Hi, very nice tips. I make croissants every week, for about 2 to 3 years. They are gorgeous outside, but the crumb looks like your bad examples. The layers stick together, it seems kind of raw inside even though they are brown outside. I have been suffering with that for a long time and confess I do not know the cause.I believe is something related with the rolling or baking. I am doing tests here all the time to improve. If you discover the reason, please tell me. I loved your video, tks a lot!
I made my croissants into brioche alike texture inside, 囧, help.
I am in that journey, I am going to try another butter, 87% was not good at least for me
How can I maintain cold dough if I will let it rest on the counter?
If I may, the butter's name is not pronounced PLUG-ras but PLU-gras. As in, plus gras, which is French for "more fat." Other than that, superb instruction.
What is the reason for the layers sticking together after baking which makes the croissant feel dense? How can we avoid this?
My dough cracked open and the butter came out. Weather isn't that cold though I have my ac at 24 located in the tropics. It's impossible to work manually.
can you save a dough that begins to bleed butter? maybe use it for something else?
My real question is how did you make so many croissants while maintaining such a chiseled jawline?
This is genius
You need to work for America's Test Kitchen, Alex!
Great suggestions…I have learned to not make them.
Hi. Sorry its about 2 years for me to find your video. Recently i baked croissant and i have conventional gas oven, the issues i face eveytime is the color is there ( golden brown ) but when i cut it open, inner part still not baked properly. What did i do wrong ? P.s i bake @180 °C ish for 20 - 30 min.
The temperature is my problem too cold and the butter shattered now i know
Hello a new member I see this good video however I failed every time doing croissant because the dough is resistant me to roll it I need to know where’s my mistake
That was my problem for the longest time. Here’s a few tips- Make sure to reach window pane consistency after kneading, make sure your dough is hydrated enough, dry dough tends to spring back faster. Rest it in the freezer and then the fridge in between turns.
That is overproofing. It rises too much then collapses when baking. They rise tremendously when baking. You don’t want them to reach full voume during proofing according to Bake it Up a Notch. And don’t hatr, but mine came out perfect my first time, but my second time was a horrible failure. So now I am trying to figure out what I did right the first time. 00 zero flour, earth balance sticks amd freezing some parts instead of hours of hours of proofing. Second time AP miyoko Earth Balance mix and more traditioanl type resting periods. This time I might try it with a bit of silken tofu to replace the egg yolk. (Mine are all vegan, hence the “odd” ingredients.)
Does refrigerating the croissant dough overnight change anything as opposed to immediately rolling and baking the croissants after laminating?
I think it has an impact on flavor and also helps develop the gluten in a good way. Some even call for freezing the rolled and shaped croissants before baking, so to a certain degree it's personal preference. At the very least, chilling the dough until its cold makes it better to work with.
you never blink your eyes 😳
👍👍👍
I have same problem with my croissant
I got a bit of the uncanny valley.
1:56 - what can you suggest for vegan/plant-based alternatives for butter? Would cocounut oil work?
I think margarine or a vegan butter would have the right texture to work.
Most margarines won't work for croissants due to the low melting point. Same goes for coconut oil, which is almost liquid at room temperature (good luck laminating that). You need to find a good vegan butter alternative like "melt buttery sticks" in the US, or the best one I've tried: Naturli Vegan Block, which is available in Europe, or can be found imported in specialised shops. Your other option is to buy professional margarine used for croissant and other pastries.
That was my first time making croissant today. l tried to make it with sourdough(this was the first mistake l think). l used french butter elle vire. The butter got leaked. Am l the only one who experienced this trouble?
Yes, the early batches taste good, but if we wanted crap croissants, we would just go to the supermarket 😅 hooray for the people watching this who ‘get it’!
Blink if you’re held at gunpoint
croissant - or how i stop worrying about making it ugly and buy them
The trouble you’re having is due to too much flour in between folds
Also, I suspect you’re using Bread Doe, don’t do that, there’s too much protein in the gluten, use all purpose, just my opinion
awesome video! but please mate, BLINK with your eyes...
Don't knead croissant dough!
It gets finished kneading from the rolling.
Very interesting and useful tips despite the psycho face
(which, indeed, is not needed at all... Looks like you have someone with a gun behind the camera.
Just lower your eyebrows, close some more your eyes and move a little more your head.
Widen your mouth. Btw, have you been on military training? You're too rigid. Just relax. The camera won't kill you. Maybe the guy with the gun behind it will. But not the camera. hahaha)
Oh!
And BLINK!
Psychos don't blink.
Normal people do.
The ending statement crack me up.. success happen after 50 failed attempt. I am on my third failure, with the same matra of not following someone recipe, finding my own path to achieve the same result. I hope i will not reach 50 attempt too🫢🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
👍👍👍👍👍👏