(crust crackling)
(judge speaking in Japanese) (Tsukino speaking in Japanese)
(judge speaking in Japanese)
(Kawachi speaking in Japanese)
(Azuma speaking in Japanese)
- [Alvin] Hello.
Welcome back to another episode of "Anime with Alvin."
Today, I'm gonna be trying to make the 314-layer croissant
from "Yakitate!! Japan."
The first thing on the agenda
is to make croissant dough from scratch,
and I've never made croissants before,
so Kendall's actually be the one
directing me from behind the camera.
Into a stand mixer, I'm combining all-purpose flour,
bread flour, sugar, yeast, and combining the salt
with the milk first to help it dissolve.
And while the salt becomes one with the milk,
I'm gonna mix the dry ingredients first,
using a hook attachment and going on a low speed
until the dry ingredients are incorporated.
And once everybody in the dry ingredients are now friends,
I'm gonna add in the salty milk,
followed by some softened butter.
Back up into the hook, followed by a couple minutes
of forceful beating until the dough is nice and smooth.
And throughout the course of these next few minutes,
I'm stopping in and using the hook
to scrape down any of the sides
so that everybody can actually become friends.
After repeating this a couple of times,
the dough is now ready to be moved,
so I'm oiling up a bowl
and transferring all the dough that I can
out of the mixer using a bowl scraper,
probably one of the best tools
ever invented for the kitchen.
The dough is ready, but the gluten is pretty worked up,
so we're gonna relax a little bit before we push it further.
After a 10- to 15-minute rest period,
the dough is now ready to be worked again.
The goal is to get this block of dough
into a shape of a rectangle,
approximately the size of a 1/4 sheet pan.
And with the help of a rolling pin, bench scraper,
and Kendall's kind and encouraging words
keeping me inspired,
I'm able to get this into the shape that I want.
Thanks, Kendall.
The next step is to cut out a rectangle of parchment paper
that approximately represents the size of the butter block
that is going inside this dough.
After cutting a shape that fits
well within the safety margins of this dough,
and obviously with the help of Kendall again,
I'm gonna try and attempt to slide this dough
back onto the tray so that it can go
into the fridge to chill.
The dough that made it onto the tray is not the same shape
as the dough that was on the table, so after fixing it up
and making sure that the parchment fits one more time,
it's time for a quick nap in the fridge.
Wait, hold up, that's illegal.
This is a block of butter, and so next,
I'm gonna throw the block of butter in the mixer.
In the mixer.
In the mixer. I'm gonna throw the... (sighs)
I'm gonna throw the...
There you go.
That's followed by some all-purpose flour,
and I'm gonna combine these with the attachment
that is not the hook one until the butter
and the flour have forcefully become friends,
again stopping from time to time
to use a spatula and scraping down the sides
to make sure that everybody is together.
I had actually never realized that the butter block
used for a croissant actually has flour inside of it.
Kendall explained this has something to do
with the way that it stabilizes
and makes it easier to work with,
so I'm just happy I get to hang out with her,
because I get to learn all these cool things.
Once the consistency has been approved,
I'm now allowed to go onto the envelope stage,
where I'm placing the paste inside a large piece
of parchment paper and using the smaller piece
as a guide for how large the final block should be.
I like to call it the envelope stage
because it's like folding the butter
into a nice little package to be delivered
right into the middle of the dough.
A really cool trick here is to use the rolling pin
and press the butter and roll it into the sides
and edges of the envelope.
That way, you get these nice, sharp corners,
and everything fits well.
After a couple minutes of coaxing the butter into its shape,
this little package is ready to be mailed
right into the fridge.
Now that both the dough and the butter
have been sufficiently chilled,
it's time to combine them together.
I'm peeling the butter off of the parchment
and placing it carefully onto one side of the dough.
We're basically gonna be making a butter Pop-Tart here.
It's also important to brush off any excess flour,
especially toward the seams, as that's gonna prevent us
from closing the butter Pop-Tart together.
So after brushing off any excess flour,
we're gonna pinch together the sides
carefully but forcefully,
and after shaping it back into a rectangle,
we're gonna transfer the butter calzone
back onto a tray with Saran Wrap.
Heat is our number-one enemy through this entire process.
The butter has to be cold, so to ensure that,
we're gonna take this butter calzone
and give it multiple naps in the fridge.
Once everything is nice and cold again,
we're gonna bring the dough back out,
sprinkle it with some bench flour,
and use the rolling pin
to make four indents across the dough.
This helps the dough roll out smoother
and prevents any butter from squishing out the other side
when rolling using a rolling pin.
The goal right now is to get the dough
into a long, rectangular shape.
We're brushing off any excess flour,
and then we're gonna do what is called a 3/4 fold,
taking one side of the dough,
bringing it 75% of the way across,
and using the other side of the dough
to meet it where the first fold ends.
I'm not exactly sure what the science is,
but I believe this helps make four layers
and prevents the seam from being exposed
to the edges of the croissant.
And even though I don't fully understand what's going on,
I trust Kendall with my complete heart,
so this is the way she says it should be done,
that is the way it should be done.
Now go put my baby in the fridge again.
Now that the dough has been chilled again,
we're gonna repeat the process, indenting it,
flouring it, rolling it out into a rectangular shape,
but this time, we're gonna do what is called a book fold,
folding one half of it 2/3 of the way across
and then folding the remaining dough over that first fold,
making sure to brush off any flour in the meantime.
It's also really important to stretch out the corners
so that they meet the edges of the rest of the dough
so that the whole thing looks as much of a rectangle
as it can, like a book.
Usually I'd put this back in the fridge,
but the dough is still cold, so I'm gonna continue
doing the same thing we did before, doing another book fold.
At this point, we've done four folds
multiplied by three folds
and multiplied again by three folds.
That's 36 folds.
But if my math is right, we have many more folds to go.
So back in the fridge, and back out again.
Here we go.
Flour, indent, roll, fold.
3 times 36 is 108.
Flour, indent, roll, fold.
3 times 108 is 324.
324 layers are inside this dough.
All that's left is to shape and bake.
After one more time in the fridge,
we're still gonna roll this dough out with the same process,
but instead of a small rectangle,
we're aiming for a large rectangle
approximately 1/4 inch thick,
and we're trimming the edges with a pizza cutter
so that we can shape the croissants
into a nice, triangular, tapered shape.
Now, with a little bit of that Ctrl + C,
Ctrl + V magic, we now have a gadget
that is five pizza cutters all lined up.
This is gonna go down the length of the dough
until we get nice, even lines,
cutting this into nice, even strips.
Ooh, that's nice.
And with the help of the first pizza cutter,
we're gonna bisect each rectangle along its hypotenuse.
Honestly not helping the stereotype here,
but we're gonna make these croissants one way or another.
Kendall showed me a trick where you use a knife
and make a small cut at the base of each triangle.
This apparently helps with the rolling
and shaping of the croissants, but I think
I'm just gonna let her show you how it's done.
Here I am, watching earnestly
as Kendall elongates the strip of the dough,
followed by opening up the legs towards the base
and rolling up the croissant into its final form.
Tight rolls are key,
so she's also stretching the dough as she is rolling,
which gives the croissant a longer
and more elegant life cycle
when it comes to the rolled shape.
Wow. That is beautiful.
High five. Let's see if I can do it.
All right, so the first step is to get the dough
into its longer shape, so I'm slowly teasing the dough,
using a gentle touch as to not break or tear the dough.
This way, I can get a nice, tapered point.
And I'm also gonna press the tip of the dough
into the work surface.
This is a trick used to almost anchor my dough
as I'm rolling it across, but still using a gentle touch,
slowly rolling it and coaxing it into its crescent shape.
Not bad, if I say so myself,
and you can kinda see the layers, maybe.
And after doing three more off camera,
these are gonna go proof before we start to bake.
So we have a lot of these scraps from earlier
that we trimmed off, and I don't want these to go to waste.
I'm gonna make some snacks
by sprinkling granulated sugar over the tops of these
and rolling them up into a rough shape.
They don't have to be perfect because,
well, they're just snacks.
And I'm essentially making a rough version of kouign-amann,
a dessert that gets a lot of its flavors
from caramelized pastry, butter, and sugar.
So we'll let these proof, and we'll see how it goes.
All right, back to the crazy croissant.
I'm gonna make a simple syrup, because in the show,
they specify that the high sugar content
inside the croissant is what created that deep degree
of caramelization and dark color found in the final product,
so I thought this could be a cool test
to run alongside the egg wash, which I'm gonna be making
by using a separated egg yolk and combining that
along with a little bit of sugar and some cream.
All right, now it's time for the fun part.
Our little rolls have proofed, our glazes are ready,
and now I'm gonna brush half of the rolls with egg wash
and half of them with the sugar syrup.
It's important here that you don't agitate
or brush any of the washes on the cross section
where you see the layers.
Having any egg wash or sugar syrup stuck in the layers
may bind them together, preventing them from rising.
We spent so much time and effort on those layers
that I wanna make sure that these can grow
up to their fullest potential.
So after delicately trying to brush only the tops,
these are going in a pretty hot oven,
around 400 and 450 degrees.
Here's a beautiful time lapse, that Brad shot,
just to show you the transformation, and voila.
This is round one.
But the thing is, even though these look perfect,
they're not done.
I'm brushing each one with a little bit of sugar syrup.
You can clearly tell
that the egg wash is getting a more intense color,
but these are going back in the oven at the same temperature
to try and create that deep, caramelized crust.
Here is another time lapse shot by Brad. Beautiful work.
And these are looking quite, quite dark,
honestly kinda burned on top,
which is what we are looking for.
So after they've cooled and I can hold one in my hand,
you can see what the final product of round one looks like.
Really dark on top,
but the layers are coming through nice and beautiful.
All right, nothing left but to hit it with a spoon.
Hey, that's not too bad.
I can see the top is cracking off a little bit,
so I'm gonna keep whacking at this croissant
until I can get as much of that dark shell off as possible.
After a couple minutes of carefully
and strategically whacking this croissant with a spoon,
we end up with a pretty beaten-up roll.
But you can see that there's a lot of layers.
I don't really count 314, but I think we can do better.
So this is actually one that we've taken
completely to the point of burnt.
It smells terrible in here.
Yup, here it is, folks.
Hey, Kendall, what do you think?
Kendall is absolutely thrilled with the end result.
Without further ado, I think it's time
to crack this open and see if we can salvage something.
All right, all right.
Wait, wait. Wait a minute.
Wait, there's no way this is working.
We actually got a golden-brown croissant
to emerge from that darkness.
There's just a really dark part at the bottom.
I don't know if, Andrew, you wanna try this.
Oh, he does, so all right, my dude.
Here we go.
Take one for the team, I guess. Cheers.
Oh, oh.
Oh, no.
Oh. Oh, no.
Oh, that is, that is disgusting.
That is...
Why did we not cut off the burnt part off the bottom?
Because the golden part actually tastes quite nice.
It's kinda like those crescent rolls
you have at those parties.
It's definitely not as flaky or as airy
as a real croissant should be
and definitely not 324 layers' worth of deliciousness,
but it's quite nice on its own.
But let's just say I'm really glad
I made those snacks from earlier,
because these look beautiful.
Honestly, these could've been the main star of the show,
and I'm really happy that Andrew had actually made
some orange pastry cream
that we're just gonna make a couple of snacks
for the team right now, 'cause these are delicious.
It's buttery.
It's flaky. It's amazing.
The pastry cream is so nice, and man,
we just call it a day right here.
We should've just ate the scraps the whole time.
(mellow music)