Croissant de Pâtissier

With four days to cushion any mistakes, I tried the non-yeast approach to making croissants for my husband’s birthday. I even baked off two, straight away, for quality control. Before the big day, I almost had all the kinks ironed out.

I’m glad I took the time test them because the day before our celebration I was still wondering why the dough wouldn’t rise after being set out all night. That’s when it dawned on me, unleavened dough won’t rise! Come to find out, there are two types of croissants— pâtissier, without yeast and boulanger, with yeast.

For croissant de pâtissier, the slight poof of the pastry comes from putting the cold croissants directly into a hot oven. The laminated butter releases air caused by the heat. Which gives them expansion and the classic flaky layers.

Someone check my science on that.

Well, three days and many -a- cold sweats later; I did it! I made croissants.

I don’t know why dough does this to me. I want to be a happy home-cook but when I work with dough I really get worked up about making mistakes.

With time and much practice I am hopeful to gain a bit more collected confidence in the kitchen. For now, it with much breath-holding and many days preparation that I approach technical bakes such as these.

A big part of technical baking is the finesse and unhurried hand it requires. It’s a lot of observance, time, and a bit of carefulness. I haven’t ever been able to offer these attributes in full for bakes like sourdough and laminated doughs. That is, until today.

I brought the ruler out ya’ll! I have never once used a ruler while baking!

OK, OK. The crooked lines reveal, I gave up on the ruler.

I’ll have you know, I did use the ruler for the laminating process though! By the time it came to cutting each croissant I was sweating and done! I mean, d…o…n…e… done!

Making croissants is like packing up the house for a move. In the beginning, I’m all, let’s use bubble wrap and individually set each ceramic dish between bath towels. By the end, I’m donating everything to the thrift store and throwing the champagne glasses in a laundry basket and hoping for the best.

After three days of preparing the dough, folding every thirty minutes and resting overnight, I nearly buckled under the pressure at the finish line. I didn’t dare use the ruler again and just started eyeballing it.

It’s silly to think about my actions now. I don’t know why I didn’t finish strong since I had hours invested up to this point. Baking reveals a lot about a persons character, I guess. As much as I’m trying to learn slow, I’m still a bit hurried and impatient.

The shaping process was a little wonky and lopsided. By the twelfth croissant I found a way to even them out. Making a deep notch with a bench scraper on the short end of the croissant and rolling them tightly and slightly outward at the onset made them roll uniformly.

By far, this was my best croissant attempt. The dough looked how it does on baking shows and the lamination was a thing of beauty— must’ve been the ruler. However the flavor was a bit flat. I wonder if the yeast actually provides more depth of flavor. I’m going to experiment with croissants de boulanger next.