Croissants

Recipe (we made two of these amounts with one failing during the butter incorporation stage) 

Mix in all of the ingredients in  food mixer, let dough chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours in homogeneous square shape, in Saran wrap

Roll out dough with a rolling pin, into a large rectangular shape of equal thickness.

Prepare the butter by hand, squish the entire needed amount onto wax paper, create a rectangular butter shape of even thickness by folding over the wax paper.
Butter needs to be just the right temperature - not too squishy and soft but also not a brick. It will likely need to be chilled in the fridge after being wrapped in wax paper.

This is what the dough will look like when the butter is inside. Make sure all the butter is covered by the dough flaps or it will come out during the multiple rolling stages.

Roll out the dough that now contains butter inside CAREFULLY, trying to apply even pressure and not squeezing any butter out. Use as much flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to rolling pin or table. Once you have a long rectangular shape rolled out, fold like a letter, onto itself, and put in the fridge to chill.



This image shows how the dough is folded between rolling sessions. It also shows that we were working with 2x the recipe. We alternated between chilling and rolling.


After rolling, folding and chilling about four times, we rolled out the dough for the last time to the size 8" x 24" trying to keep the rectangular shape. This method will yield 24 small croissants.



Now the fun part - rolling up individual croissants! Make a small cut in one of the triangle's sides - that's where you begin folding the dough back on itself to create the roll. We added three different fillings to our batch - ham+cheese, hot dogs, and almond paste. All tasted great, almond being my favorite. Make sure to dust off the triangles before adding fillings, and wipe on some beaten egg first so the piece sticks together after it's rolled up.

The croissants looked pretty ugly before they were baked. Once we rolled the entire pan and had the oven preheating to 360F we set the pan aside to let the croissants rise (they have yeast in them).

Letting them double in size is important as it will give them a fluffier texture. We likely didn't let ours rise long enough, or the repeated process of cooling and rolling the dough inactivated the yeast. Ours came out a bit dense. Here's what the pan looked like right before it was placed in the oven. We brushed some egg on tops for the golden brown look.



After they were baked at 360F for about 15-20 minutes

Final product (almond batch) with some powdered sugar sprinkled on top