- [Instructor] What's not to love
when it comes to croissants?
Flaky on the outside, soft and buttery on the inside,
they might just be our favorite French pastry.
Though easy to enjoy, croissants can be difficult to perfect
especially if you're making them at home.
The process takes practice and a lot of patience,
but trust us, when we say it's worth it.
We tested hundreds of croissants
to bring you the best classic croissant
and have you baking like a pro.
So let's get into it.
(gentle music)
We're gonna start by making our dough.
Our dough consists of eight ingredients.
Milk, water, flour, sugar,
salt, yeast, malt, and butter.
In a large bowl combine the milk and water.
A lot of croissant recipes call for just water,
but we found that a combination of water and whole milk
creates that tender crumb we want.
The added sugar from the milk will also help us achieve
that deep copper color.
Okay, next, we'll add the flour.
We're using bread flour because it's high in protein
and one of the strongest flours available.
It's gonna help provide the structural support
for our dough.
The extra protein in bread flour makes for better volume,
chewier crumb, and more browning in the crust.
Now we'll add our sugar, salt, yeast,
and malt for extra flavor.
The last ingredient for our dough is unsalted butter.
Not all croissant recipes use butter in the dough,
but we found that a small amount of butter fat
in the dough helps during the lamination process.
We'll mix this together with our hands
until the dough resembles a shaggy mass.
We don't wanna develop gluten here,
we just wanna hydrate the flour and create a unified dough.
Trust your instincts here.
If your dough feels too wet, like this,
it'll be more difficult to roll out
which will cause the butter to shatter laminating.
You can always add a little bit more flour here.
If your dough is too dry, it'll begin tear during rolling
and eventually bake into something more similar
to a bread roll than a pastry.
Unfortunately, there's really no fix for this.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel
and allow the dough to rest at room temperature
until it rises to about one and a half times
its original size and has a slightly puffy texture.
This will probably take about an hour depending
on the temperature of your kitchen.
Okay, this looks good.
We'll punch down the dough
and transfer it onto a piece of plastic wrap.
Then gently press the dough into a rough eight inch square.
There we go.
Then we'll wrap the dough tightly and refrigerate
for at least three hours, but preferably overnight.
Let's move on to one of the most crucial steps
of croissants, the butter block or beurrage.
It's really important to use a high quality butter.
We recommend using European or European-style butter
because we're looking for at least 84% butter fat.
That's gonna help give our croissants
that famous honeycomb finish.
To make the butter block place a sheet of parchment paper
on a work surface with the long side nearest to you.
Next we'll slice the butter into 1/4 inch thick pieces
and arrange the slices in a single layer like tiles.
Fold the edges of the parchment paper to encase the butter
and flip the packet over.
So the seam is facing down.
We'll let the butter packet rest at room temperature
until it's soft but not greasy.
Chilled yet pliable is what most recipes will tell you.
We essentially want the butter
to be a little bendy but not break.
For us it took about 30 minutes
for our butter to reach this consistency.
Then we'll take a rolling pin and roll it over the packet
to distribute the butter in an even layer all the way
to the edges and corners,
leaving no spaces between the tiles.
And there you have it.
Place the butter packet in the refrigerator to chill
until you're ready to laminate.
All right, let's laminate.
First thing we need to do is lock the butter into the dough.
To do this we wanna make sure that our butter
and our dough are about the same temperature and texture.
Simply hold the butter in one hand
and the dough in the other hand and feel them.
We'll dust our work surface very lightly with flour.
We will use our butter block
as the guide to how large we roll out our dough.
We wanna roll out our dough to be about the same width
and about twice the height of our butter packet.
Once the dough is rolled out,
place the packet butter side down
on the bottom half of the dough,
leaving about a half inches space around the edges.
Once you have the butter in the correct spot,
carefully peel back the parchment paper
to release the butter.
Now fold the top half of the dough over the butter,
stretching it ever so gently so that the edges
of the dough reaches the exposed edges beneath the butter.
Use the palm of your hand to gently press the side
and bottom edges of the dough together
to seal the packet closed.
Look at this!
Our dough looks sort of like a closed book.
So moving forward, we'll call this the spine side
and this will be the page side.
We wanna make sure that the butter rolls out evenly.
So we'll use our rolling pin to firmly press the dough
and begin distributing the butter.
To release that tension from folding the dough onto itself,
we'll use a rated knife to cut down the middle of the spine.
Now make sure to orient the dough so
that the split spine is closest to you and begin rolling.
Continue rolling until the dough is about 12 inches high,
fluffing and moving the dough to make sure it doesn't stick
to our work surface.
Once we have the height, we wanna roll the dough
until it's about a 1/4 inch thick.
It's time to make our first fold.
Fold the bottom third of the dough up
and the top third of the dough down,
kind of like folding a letter.
Hence why we call this fold a letter fold.
We wanna continue rolling out
to about the same size rectangle we had before,
with a 1/4 inch thickness.
If your rectangle gets a little wild
and has some rounded edges, you can use a serrated knife
or a pastry wheel to straighten out the sides.
We wanna keep as close to a perfect rectangle as possible
for optimal layers.
Now we're ready for our second and final fold.
Fold the left two thirds of dough
over itself to just pass the center of the dough.
Then fold the right third of the dough
over itself towards the left so that the edges meet.
Gently press the two ones together to make a seam
that resembles an offset book spine.
Then fold the left side of the dough over
to meet the right edge of the dough.
This is called a four-fold.
A lot of recipes will have you resting
and folding the dough three and four times
to create a crazy amount of layers
and show off that iconic honeycomb structure.
However, we found that although fewer folds
creates fewer layers, they're more distinct layers,
and honestly give the croissant our favorite crumb texture,
light with just enough chew.
Plus it's a little less labor intensive.
Our croissants are really shaping up,
but actually let's get to shaping these babies.
Now we gotta roll the dough out one more time
and you guessed it,
get back down to that 1/4 inch thickness.
For this next part we like to use a pastry wheel
but you can also totally use a large chef's knife.
Begin by marking three inches
and roll the wheel from the mark diagonally
towards the bottom left corner.
Continue cutting the rest of the dough until
you have about 10 to 12 triangles.
Make a slit in the middle of the base of each triangle
to help relieve some tension
and then roll them up to create that iconic crescent shape.
Make sure to roll as tight
as possible without applying too much pressure
so that the croissants will hold its shape
as it proofs and bakes.
The French word croissant actually translates
to crescent in English.
Many historical experts believe French croissants evolved
from Austrian kipferl,
a buttery and often sweet baked good
shaped like a crescent moon.
According to the popular legend kipferl dates back to 1683
when a baker heard the Ottoman Turks tunneling
beneath Vienna to lay siege to it.
He sounded the alarm to save the city
and created kipferl to celebrate this victory.
It's curve shape supposedly symbolize
the crescent moon emblem on the Ottoman flag.
Kipferl eventually migrated to France
and evolved into what we now know and love as the croissant.
Before we get to baking, we have to proof our pastries.
We like to add boiling water to a small vessel
like a ramekin, and place it on
the tray under the plastic wrap while the croissants proof.
Moisture is key to prevent the dough from drying out.
You'll know they're ready to bake
when they look like light puffy clouds.
They should slightly wobble when you shake the tray.
Lastly, we'll brush them with an egg wash
to give our croissants that iconic shiny copper-brown shell.
And finally, it's time to bake.
We recommend placing a pan filled
with boiling water at the bottom of your oven.
Steam ultimately helps the dough grow
before the heat traps it in it's shell.
Bake the croissants in the oven at 350 degrees
for about 30 minutes.
And before we bite into these works of perfection,
we wanna let them cool for about 20 minutes.
And voila, perfectly golden croissants.
We think croissants taste best when baked fresh
with a smear of jam or a drizzle of honey,
and served with your favorite breakfast beverage.
The possibilities are really endless
when it comes to using this laminated dough
to make other beautiful flaky pastries.
This recipe is truly a labor of love.
And once you nail it, the reward is insanely sweet.
For this recipe and even more croissant baking tips,
check out tasty.com.
Croissants really make the world a butter place.
(laughing)
(gentle music)