6 hour croissant for the impatient

Croissant is one item that I have contemplated but it has been no action, talk only status. Spurred on by the success of recent ‘experimental’ macaroons and chiffon, I thought it is time to embark on this croissant while I am on a winning streak.

I first spied the recipe here and thought the worst that could happen was 2 cups of flour and ½ a block of butter. The recommended resting time was one night in the chiller but the yeast in the flour could not be held back even in the coldest part of the chiller. It was like a monster   trying to break out. All in all, instead of an overnight recipe, I had it done, from flour to croissant in 6 hours.

It was nothing like Delifrance but a wee bit on the dense side with a hint of a layered filo texture. This said, it makes for a good candidate  for encasing molten salted egg yolk which is my next project.

The batch of 8 was consumed between 3 persons in a day so it cannot be all bad. It is not the airy croissant but for the time being, the novice in me is all happy about it. I am sure the original poster’s croissant is way above this standard so the lapse is definitely a fault of my own.

Adapted from here

Makes 8.

Ingredients :

125ml milk, room temperature

3 Tbsp caster sugar

7g instant yeast

250g bread flour

¼ tbsp fine salt

160g unsalted butter cubes, very cold

eggwash :

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp milk

A rim of cellophane

Method :

Preparation of wet dough -

Mix milk, sugar and yeast. Stir to combine. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour and salt.

Add butter. Break the butter with a fork until the flour and butter forms pea sized lumps.

Add milk-yeast mixture. Mix.

Use a spatula and bring the dough together.

Transfer the dough to a cellophane lined worktop.

Folding the dough to create layers -

Place a sheet of cellophane on top of the dough. This prevents the roller from sticking to the dough.

Roll out the dough to a rectangle, 2 handspans long.

Fold the dough, like a letter, bring both sides towards the centre.

Rotate 90 degrees.

Repeat the rolling and folding.

Rotate and repeat another couple of times. This is to create many layers when baked.

Wrap up the dough and let it chill, about 2 hours.

Making the croissant -

Remove dough from the chiller and roll out the dough to a rectangle, 4 by 2 handspans.

Cut out 8 triangles with a roller cutter.

Snip the centre of the longer side of the triangle.

Roll the dough, from the longer side towards to apex.

Transfer to a lined baking tray.

Leave to rise for 1 hour or until croissant is double in size.

Baking -

Preheat the oven to 230C.

Before baking, paint the croissant with the egg wash.

Bake at 230C for 8 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to 190C.

Bake for another 10 minutes until brown.

Leave to cool before eating.