Showing posts with label croissant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label croissant. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

CRONUTS!

Ok, I just saw the cronut that is hitting the big city as the new craze. A croissant/donut hybrid.  Um, this isn't new?!  We have been frying up biscuit dough down here in the south forever... however, I have not fried croissant dough.

YET

I saw you can make them from crescent dough in a tube (euwww!) and simply deep fry them, which we ALL do down her all the time.  I think I can make a better one with my croissant dough!  YA!

Watch this space, the dough is rising and I have a free day tomorrow, I'm ALL over this!!

/tracy

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Croissant method slideshow...

MY CROISSANTS: 


IF you divide the dough and roll each half into 6, this is how big they are:

 
 IF you divide the dough and roll each half into 8, this is how big puny they are:

 


I had a few questions about the technique of rolling the croissants I have come up with. 

This is the slideshow of the new croissant method I developed, it goes with this post: 

http://www.tracycooksinaustin.com/2013/03/croissants-i-did-it-i-did-it-and-it-was.html

I made the dough, dumped it all in the kitchenaid and let it mix, on high, with the dough hook, until it was a soft, smooth dough.  That took 5 minutes. 

I took it out and put it on the counter and this is where we pick up the action :) I didn't do a movie, it's a slide show, free to stop it to check the consistency of your dough. 

The first rise took 13 minutes ;)  Then after I punched it down it went in the fridge for 2 hours.  The butter was grated, while frozen, and tossed back into the freezer until I needed it.  I just plunk it in a dish. 

I really just wanted to show you the method I figured out.  I hope you go and make croissants ;) 



message me in the comments if you have any questions. :)  

/enjoy






Friday, March 29, 2013

Croissants Rich Buttery Delicious and a new method

** This is a METHOD update

I've determined a new method to make these croissants. I've tested and retested and my international tester has tested and retested. I've nailed it.

You prepare the dough, let it rise. You punch it down and let it chill for a couple of hours. THEN you have to butter the dough. I grate my butter, from frozen and put it on a plate in the freezer, uncovered, in two separate piles.

The method is NOT to roll, fold and turn, mark, chill etc. It's to roll out the chilled dough to a gigantic circle (17" round), pull the corners out to square them a bit and spread 1/2 the amount of shaved, frozen, butter on the dough then ROLL IT, jelly roll style from top to bottom (toward you) and press it down with your hands to a rectangle shape. THEN you roll the dough into a very long, narrow, rectangle and cover with the other half of the frozen butter and roll it, jelly roll style, from left to right. You end up with 18 layers x 18 layers which is more than the classic fold, turn, chill method which, frankly, is a colossal pain. Press it down with your hands and put it back in a container, in the fridge, overnight. THEN roll it, slice it and bake it in the morning.

The recipe, below, is for 8 croissants but I have tested cutting the dough in half, in the morning, and you can get 8 from each half, if you like small croissants, or 12 total if you still want big ones.

I am so happy to share this method, I'm just lazy I guess and couldn't face another roll, fold, turn, mark, chill of puff pastry.

Try my method, it WORKS and it's a million times easier and faster and you get ridiculously flaky results. I will never go back to the old method... This is the Tracy Croissant Roll ;)

I will be updating the blog post with play by play pictures when I make these again in a few days but I had to get it out there.  In the mean time, here's pictures of the new, smaller, ones I made today, each tray is half the dough: 



here's an idea of the size of them:
 


SLIDESHOW OF METHOD HERE: 
 http://www.tracycooksinaustin.com/2013/04/croissant-method-slideshow.html


OK, here's the post:

CROISSANTS...

EASY, DELICIOUS, FLAKY, SHOW STOPPING...

AT HOME

I'm a pretty confident cook.  There aren't many things that make me cringe.  There's two.  Pastry and Croissants.  Both pastry and croissants hate me.  I know, scientifically, how to make them.  I can't.  I rarely do and I think pastry and croissants like the fact I'm afraid of them. 

Not any more buttery light flaky breakfast pastry treat! You don't have dominion over me, NOT ANY MORE! 

I will acquiesce to the fact this might be slightly over dramatic but really, pastry and croissants have kicked my behind for a substantial period of time and over the course of two days, I nailed both.  

I need the kudos, I'm still feeling a little sad about other things.  I am not, however, feeling sad about my croissants.  

I didn't start taking pictures until the dough had risen overnight but really, there's nothing to it.  The beauty shots are what will get you where you need to be. 

C'mon... let's make croissants and you will love me afterward.  You BET I added a million pictures, these are crazy good and crazy easy and you will be making them regularly.  I know you will.

TRACY'S OVERNIGHT CROISSANTS (kind of cheating kind of not) 

2-3 cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp yeast
1 Tablespoon shortening or lard
1 cup water

1 cup cold butter (grated: more about this below)
egg wash to brush croissants when you bake them

In the bowl of a kitchen aid mixer combine the 2 1/2 cups of the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and shortening.  Mix it around a bit, you're sort of coating the flour with the lard, no lumps, we don't want lumps.  When it looks like sand, dump in all the water and beat with the dough hook until it cleans the side (add a little flour it if needs help clearing the side of the bowl) and beat until it's a smooth, soft (VERY SOFT) dough.  Take out of bowl and knead for a minute to feel as though you're involved and form it into a smooth ball.
*can you make this without a kitchen aid mixer?  of course you can, just mix and knead by hand ;)

Rub a little soft butter on top of the dough ball and put it in a covered container to rise, about 40 minutes.  
*I used the multi mix bucket from home depot.  here's the link: http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/203925186?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=multi+mix+container&storeId=10051&N=5yc1v&R=203925186#.UVX26hx_6So  
they are WAY cheaper than the other proofing boxes I have and is perfect for a little dough like this one.  

Take 1 cup of cold butter and GRATE it, on your cheese grater.  Separate it into 4 loose piles on one plate and put it in the freezer.  That is the chef-y moment of this whole recipe.

When it's doubled, take it out, give it a quick fold to deflate it, put it back in the container, with the lid and pop it into the fridge for 1-2 hours.  Mine MORE than doubled in an hour so I dealt with it then, if yours isn't then leave it the full 2 hours. 

THIS is the usually scary part but in MY version, it's not scary at all. *SEE NEW METHOD ABOVE*

Take the cold dough and roll it into a rectangle, no measurements just into a big rectangle.  Mine was about 14 long by 6 wide.  

Take one pile of the shredded butter and sprinkle it over the dough sort of evenly.  Fold the top third of the dough down, over the butter and the bottom third up over the butter and the folded down side.  


Spin the dough 90 degrees and do it again, roll it into a big rectangle, sprinkle another pile of the butter, fold in thirds, like a letter.


Spin the dough 90 degrees, do it again.  Roll a big rectangle, sprinkle another pile of the dough, fold in thirds, like a letter. 


LAST time but this one is DIFFERENT!  so pay attention.  

Roll the dough out in a rectangle.  Sprinkle the butter over it and ROLL it, jellyroll style.  Flatten it slightly, roll it the other way, sprinkle with frozen shredded butter and jelly roll it side to side.   wrap it in plastic and plunk it in the fridge overnight. 

NOW then, mine exploded out of the plastic so I had to take it out, re flatten and re wrap it.  SO either allow for that by putting it in a covered container with room to grow or wrap it very very loosely.  I think next time I will either (a) put it in a covered (tightly) container or (b) put it in a giant ziploc bag to allow it to grow and not dry out. 

DING!  NEXT MORNING!

One VERY puffy packet of dough.  As I said, mine exploded so this is double wrapped. So, on a lightly floured board, start rolling.  You can spin as you go if you want.  I did.
  
Roll, roll, spin, spin.  Start with a little flour but feel free to dust lightly to prevent it from sticking.  Flip it over if you need.  This dough is VERY easy to work with, it didn't take long at all to roll it to about a 15 inch square?  My board is 15 inches and the dough is about square, that's how I figured that out :)
  
Find a knife, OR a pizza cutter and divide the dough into 4 then into 8.  Sure, you could make these smaller but WHY?  Start at the outside edge, stretch the piece just a little and roll it up.
  
Like the croissant on a parchment covered or silpat covered baking sheet.  I like straight croissants, if you have to hook them into the 'c' shape then go for it, I think these are cooler though.
 
  
Cover them and leave them to rest about 15 minutes.  
Enough time to heat up your oven to 425.  
Brush the croissants with egg before you pop them into the oven for 15-19 minutes.  
I DID NOT OPEN THE DOOR until the 15 minute mark then I did open it to spin the tray then cooked them another 4 minutes.

You'll see they didn't rise too much before they go into the oven but LOOK when they come OUT!
  
Transfer them to a rack and wait as long as you possible can to dive into these shatteringly flaky gifts from the culinary gods..... just look...  I'll wait.....
       
Here's the other batch:
 
I like to pull the ends off and slather it with cold butter and some of my homemade jam.  Yeah I do.....
 

Already, someone has noticed that from the original 8, there are only 6 being cooked!  BRAVO!  At the last moment, I snatched 2 rolled/risen croissant and wrapped them and threw them into the freezer as part of a grand experiment (and because my international tester would want me to).  I will cook one from frozen and one from thawed tomorrow to see how they do as true make ahead item.  See how I love you.  


Here's Alice... having stolen my slipper to use as a pillow, she chose not to move as I called her name....apparently this is how she pretends to be unseen.











But I digress...  back to the issue at hand.... look!  Seriously, I'm just delighted and keep gazing at them!


Now then, you have absolutely no reason whatsoever not to make croissants.  Whoever says you have to spend hours making puff pastry and turning and putting back in the fridge and wasting an entire day with popping dough into the fridge and freezer...  I don't THINK so!

Look what we can do now!  So, in reality it takes a couple of hours of time the day before but it's not time you're DOING anything, the rolling/butter/fold/flip takes about 15 minutes.  I would gladly spend more than that to get THESE! 

They are crisp, tender, chewy, flaky, buttery, sweet, rich and all things that a croissant should be...  Make these...  let me know how they turn out... well, after you wipe crumbs from your hands ;)  
oh and you're welcome 

/enjoy







Thursday, July 26, 2012

Croissant (as authentic as I can without going to culinary school)





I decided to make up yet another a recipe.  I knew it would take all day so I wrote and took pictures while I did it.  It didn't turn out nearly as I had wanted BUT I've left it here anyway.  So, for those who have time to kill and wondered how often I blow it, (often!) Here is my ode on how not to make croissants. 

ADDENDUM (AGAIN!)  I let the dough rest overnight and cooked the second half.  SUCCESS!  I'm thinking this is going to be a keeper.  I'll try to repeat it in the week and if it works the second time, I'll do a recipe. 

I'm all about old fashioned, high maintenance, food.  I try to alter the recipes a little bit to fit into my current lifestyle and on the whole have been relatively successful.  I'll be honest, I have very few failures.  However, there are a few things that vex me.  I have two main nemesis'.  Pastry is one, I'm truly inconsistent and frequently frustrated with pastry.  There other is croissants... I've tried about a million (that is not an exaggeration) croissant recipes.  I haven't been delighted with any of their outcomes.


I can whip up loaves of bread with the best of them, I know how it's supposed to look, to feel, to taste.  I know how it's supposed to move in my hands and on the board.  Breads love me.  Croissants, not so much. 


I have been researching and reading copious numbers of cookbooks and websites for a good, (easy hahaha) croissant recipe that doesn't require me thinking about it days ahead of time. 


I'm home today, writing, if there's any day that seems the best for working through a recipe then dough that needs more attention than a newborn, today is the day. 


There is yeast doing yeasty things in my Ninja, fitted with the "dough" blade.  I'm going to blog this in real time.  You might need to go get a glass of wine, this may be a long one. I will add the photographs in sections throughout my day.


Oh and yes, I'm making it up as I go along.  I will have a final recipe at the end of this post.


10:15am 


Into the mixer, I threw some milk, a spoonful of sugar and a half spoonful of yeast. (I can't find my measuring spoons *so sad* so am using a regular tablespoon "soup spoon" to measure.  I have mixed it and am letting it sit for 10 minutes.


I added some all purpose flour, salt, a little more sugar and some butter, a little blob of it.  


Mix to a soft dough.  Knead for a moment (the machine, afterall is on kneading duty) so you feel truly involved, coat the smooth, soft, dough ball with a little knob of butter, put it in a clean bowl and cover tightly with cling wrap.  Put in the oven with the light on and set the timer for 1 hour, we'll check it later.  The dough is a little knobbly coming out of the mixer but a quick knead for a moment brought it together and smoothed it out beautifully.


On a piece of parchment paper, dust some flour and put a stick of butter on it.  Flatten the butter with your fingers to a 6x4 rectangle.  Add flour so it doesn't stick.  Flip it over a few times to get it smooth and be sure you're not sticking to it!  Wrap it loosely in the parchment and pop it in the fridge to cool. 

See how we're doing double rising/cooling duty.  We have an hour to ourselves, off you go and do something fun.  I'm going to go write about food for a bit.
  
sprinkle parchment with flour, coat lightly and flatten the butter, wrap and toss it in the fridge
 

 

11:30am

Ok, it's about an hour later, let's see what we have...ok, that looks doubled.


On a lightly floured surface, press it out and roll it into a rectangle.  It's lovely to work with and doesn't stick at all.
 
when it's flat and about 3 times the size of the very solid piece of butter, place the butter on the bottom third and fold over like a letter
 

 
fold the butter inside the dough, turn like a book and roll it out again, fold in thirds again, square it all up, wrap it in plastic and shove it back in the fridge to get firm and cold.
 
it's already starting to warm up and loosen...I was trying to be fast.  I have a feeling this isn't going to work, I think I broke the butter but I am forging bravely ahead, this is an experiment afterall.
 
 A quick repeat of the roll out and fold then quickly into the plastic wrap and into the fridge.  You can see how it's starting to soften! EEEK
 
Ah, folded, wrapped and back into the fridge.


We'll revisit in a couple of hours, I have shopping to do, we'll regroup in 2.

2:pm

Okie dokie, it looks well rested and its definitely cold.  Still pliable but definitely well chilled
 
Again, I rolled it into a rectangle, folded it in thirds, turned it like a book and repeated.  BACK into the fridge for another hour.

3 PM (ish)

I've removed the dough, cut it in half, rolled it out into a really bad circle and cut it into 6 triangles.  I rolled them (again, badly) and put them on a sheetpan, covered.  Time to let them rise, we'll peek in about an hour and see how they're doing.  They are funny looking because I made them straight and as I was taking their picture, it occurred to me I should do them crescent shaped, for effect, so I tried to reshape them with one hand so I wouldn't gum up my camera.  See, all in the name of science.  We'll see how they are in a hour, or so.  I need a drink anyway
 


4:30 ish
Ok, this is exhausting.  After an hour to rise, they really didn't rise much.  I egg washed them and threw them into a 375 oven. 
   

Well well well.  I don't think I'd call this a rousing success but also it's not a complete and epic fail.  They are miles too small. The flavor is fabulous, absolutely fabulous.  The texture is a little too bready but it's tender and there are about a zillion layers in there.  The crust is pretty nice but could be much flakier.  You bet I'm making these again, I am already making alchemy notes.  I'll nail it.  I'll let you know when I do.

In the meantime, go buy some croissants and we'll meet back another day.

NEXT DAY!

I rolled out the second half of the dough, cut it into 4, rolled them, put them on a pan, sprayed them with a little water, covered them loosely and left them for 2 hours.  *I went to the store and sort of forgot about them to be honest*

I sprayed them again with water and threw them into a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes.  Spun them and cooked them for another 3.

Oh, look at them!  I just might be delighted:

After a 90 minute rise, much puffier than yesterdays version!  Oh yes, these are working nicely!
 

 

I squealed with delight...  I'm working the recipe details and if I can recreate this, I'll post it! YAY!


/Tracy