I love croissants. I mean who doesn't? I don't recall ever eating one I didn't like. That said, I have never chocked up the courage to attempt to make one from scratch, as it is one of those pastries with a reputation of being a real pain in the ass to create. I didn't really find the motivation in attempting, as I was able to easily buy my fix in the freezer section of Milk Pail Market, which is a tiny open air style market in Mountain View, California. While they carry a variety of cheeses, pantry items, and produce, their real draw is their freezer case, which carries the most delicious French pastries that only require an overnight final proof before baking. Based on the packaging, I am pretty sure the pastries are made locally. For years the Milk Pail has been my go-to for my croissants, pain au chocolat, and other French delights that I could simply keep in my freezer until I wanted a fresh pastry to accompany my morning coffee or decide to host a brunch. Given the accessibility and simplicity, the motivation wasn't there to make my own... Until recently. The Milk Pail, which used to be situated in a relatively quiet area of Mountain View, is now dwarfed by a gigantic office complex, which will be a future home of Facebook, newer apartments, and overall congestion. It is just a hassle to go there now, so, given my newly found confidence in laminated doughs, I decided to finally try to crack the croissant, especially after my talented baker friend I have referenced in past posts brought me over a little container of malt powder.
Having so many recipe options in my sea of baking cookbooks, I decided to follow The Bouchon Bakery Cookbook. I have made several recipes from this essential baker's guide, which can't be critiqued as not having very detailed recipes. I can't say I have ever produced a complete fail from it, although their Better Nutter recipe doesn't even hold a candle to those found at their Yountville Bakery. Pro tip: If you want some amazing peanut butter cookie sandwiches, consult in America's Test Kitchen's Peanut Butter Cookies and Peanut Butter Buttercream recipes.
Now if you decide to try to make croissants at home, be ready to carve out some serious time, making it a good idea to make extra puff pastry sheets to freeze for future use. I actually recommend this for all these time consuming doughs.
I am going to do something a little different in this post, and share a timeline, so you can see that I am not kidding when I say this is time consuming. I actually cut back on some of the recommended times, to turn a three calendar-day process into two, which I won't probably do next time.
6:00ish PM: I made the poolish by mixing a pinch of yeast, the water, and flour. I have no idea why poolish is called poolish, but it is up there with moist on the list of disturbing words. Since that has to sit for 12-15 hours, I covered it up and moved on to making my butter block packet, which I formed into a 6.5"x7.5" square by spreading softened butter onto a parchment sheet that I folded in the center to the exact size requirements. Many recommend beating and rolling cold butter to shape, but I don't understand why, as you will need to chill it again anyway, and it is just so unnecessarily hard to form from a cold block. Once my butter packet was formed and placed in the refrigerator, my job was completed for the night.
8:30 AM: Poolish, which got all bubbly and yeasty, is ready, and the butter block is super cold! I continued to keep the block in the refrigerator as I mixed the dough.
Next I sprayed a large glass bowl with nonstick spray, and began to mix the flour, sugar, yeast, and malt in my stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. As it was mixing, I poured half of the water into my poolish to release the sticky, yeasty mix from the bowl. Immediately after, I added the poolish and softened butter to the dry mix and let the mixer run on low for about two minutes, which is just long enough to incorporate all the ingredients. I scraped down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the flour was incorporated, then sprinkled my salt on top and mixed on low speed for another two minutes. I added a bit of the remaining water to make the dough mix a little bit more moist (ugh, that word). Once it was a little doughier looking, I mixed on low speed for 20 minutes. Once it formed into a nice mass on the dough hook, I did a little bit of stretching of it on the counter, then placed the dough seam-side down into the sprayed bowl. I let the covered dough rest at room temperature for an hour and started to fill out my mid-term election ballot.
10:50 AM: Once the hour has passed, and, after I completed by 2018 mid-term ballot, the dough had risen. I turned it out on a lightly floured countertop and pat the dough into a 10"x7.5" rectangle, pushing out any gas bubbles that formed. I transferred it to a lined baking sheet, covered with plastic wrap, and transferred to the freezer for 20 minutes. At this point, many recipes suggest also letting it rest overnight to encourage further fermenting, development of flavors, and relaxation of the glutens, but I wasn't that patient, since I simply wanted this first attempt to figure out the technique. Now I got the technique out of my system, I will let the dough further rest next time.
11:30 AM: It was time to enclose the butter block. On a lightly floured surface, I rolled the dough into 16"x7.5" rectangle. I had to do a bit of flour dusting, fluffing and turning of the dough along the way since it was still somewhat sticky. Once I got it to size, I laid the block of butter in the center, folded the edges over, book style, and began my first fold.
I rolled the butter encased dough into a 22"x9" rectangle, letter folding it, and setting it again into the freezer to rest, covered, on a baking sheet for 20 minutes. The goal here it to get the butter and dough cold, but not so much it is unworkable. They suggested indenting the corner with one finger notch to remind yourself that you completed the first turn. I did this, but really didn't find it useful. I have a bad memory, but it is not yet that bad where I can't remember what I did 20 minutes prior.
12:30 PM: The second turn is pretty much a lather, rinse, repeat of the first turn. This time I gave it two finger notches in the corner, and returned to the freezer for another 20 minutes.
1:00 PM: Same as 12:30, but with three notches. This time I let it rest in the freezer for about 30 minutes so it would be super cold for the next step.
1:45 PM: I rolled out the dough to 24"x9", fluffing, turning, and adding flour along the way, as it started sticking. I found this stage to be a bit tricky since the dough kept bouncing back, making it hard to get to the required size. I probably added too much flour during this stage, as I noticed in the end. Also, butter started poking out of the torn dough, which I was compensating with more flour to avoid sticking to the counter. I since learned that when that starts happening, I should have put the dough into the freezer to chill before working it again. Anyhow, live and learn. Once I got the dough to size, I then cut it into two 12"x9" rectangles and pat myself on the back for what appeared to be pretty decent layers. I then placed each half of the dough on a piece of parchment, stacked on a baking sheet, and moved to the freezer for another 20 minutes.
2:30 PM: Now it is FINALLY time to form the croissants. I took the dough out of the freezer, and, on a lightly floured surface, I rolled it into a 19"x9" rectangle, which I then trimmed down to 18". I measured 3.75" on the 18" length and cut a diagonal to the opposite end of the dough. I then measured 3.75" on the opposite end and did the same cut. This created 8 triangles per sheet of dough. I then lightly stretched each rectangle to be about 12" long, slit a notch at the top and rolled to achieve "five shoulders". I made sure to tuck in that center pointy piece so it wouldn't burn in the oven. For the scraps, I shaped them into little rolls. Those things were hard earned, and I wasn't going to simply throw them out!
I put a handful on these on a cookie sheet to make more immediately, and placed the rest into the freezer so they could freeze completely. For those I would bake, I coated with an egg wash of one whisked egg and a little milk. I then placed the tray of croissants into a plastic bag to proof for about two hours. During that time I dropped off my ballot and picked up my kid from school.
5:15 PM: Can I finally bake these damned things!? I did the finger proof test, and was excited to see the dough left an indentation, which was the indicator that they are finally ready for the oven. I brushed again with the egg wash and added to the oven set to 325 degree F convection for 30 minutes. During this time, I also bagged the frozen croissants, so I could have my own Milk Pail style croissants whenever I want--well, not whenever, but more like the morning following whenever I want.
5:50 PM: I finally had something to taste test. We were so eager that we didn't even allow much time to cool. They were so delicious. Buttery and crispy. Far from perfect, but far from inedible. Most people wouldn't even likely notice the imperfections. But since I am all about full disclosure, even when I fail, the insides did have large gaps and were tighter in some areas than desired (pardon my daughter's peace sign photobomb). The desired honeycomb look of the interior was also missing. My theory is that it was from all that flour I added when trying to work the dough into size during each stage, as well as butter seepage during these stages. As I mentioned earlier, next time I will rest my dough longer, and listen to it more, placing it into the freezer again once these tells emerge. I will probably proof it a bit longer, too. Until then, we will happily eat these less-than-perfect croissants that will save me from fighting the chaos of the area surrounding Milk Pail. But who am I kidding? I can never quit you, Milk Pail.
