
It’s all about the layers…
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With this recipe we want to give you the exact directions on how we go about making classic French croissants. The recipe is an adaptation from the recipe for Classic Croissants by Jeffrey Hamelman. We started out largely following the instructions for his recipe, changed everything to our beloved metric system and found out some worthwhile croissant knowledge of our own along the way. Hopefully enough to justify sharing it all with you and inspiring you to give croissant baking a shot yourself.
Before you start we can recommend watching our croissant making video to get a general feel for the recipe. You can also check out our croissant making log where we keep track of our own croissant baking adventures. For answers to your croissant questions you can check out the Frequently Asked Croissant Questions section.
This recipe will yield about 15 good croissants plus some leftover bits which you can use to make a few, slightly odd shaped ones, or other inventive croissant-like creations.
If at first you don’t succeed, maybe you can take comfort from the fact that our first efforts were not very ‘croissant worthy’. But as you can see we persevered and got better…But we have to admit it is and always will be a tricky process. You have to work precise and be focused to get good results. So away with screaming children, hyperactive animals and all other things distracting! Put on some appropriate croissant making music and lets get to it…
Please read the following tips;
According to Raymond Calvel croissants laminated with margarine are formed into the crescent shape, while croissants laminated with butter are left in the straight form. We say, use whichever shape you like best, but do use butter!
The croissant recipe
Ingredients for the croissant dough
500 g French Type 55 flour or unbleached all-purpose flour / plain flour (extra for dusting)
140 g water
140 g whole milk (you can take it straight from the fridge)
55 g sugar
40 g soft unsalted butter
11 g instant yeast
12 g salt
Other ingredients
makes 15
280 g cold unsalted butter for laminating
1 egg + 1 tsp water for the egg wash
Day 1
Making the croissant dough
We usually do this part in the evening. Combine the dough ingredients and knead for 3 minutes, at low to medium speed, until the dough comes together and you’ve reached the stage of low to moderate gluten development. You do not want too much gluten development because you will struggle with the dough fighting back during laminating. Shape the dough like a disc, not a ball, before you refrigerate it, so it will be easier to roll it into a square shape the following day. Place the disc on a plate, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge overnight.
Day 2
Laminating the dough
Cut the cold butter (directly from the fridge) lengthwise into 1,25 cm thick slabs. Arrange the pieces of butter on waxed paper to form a square of about 15 cm x 15 cm. Cover the butter with another layer of waxed paper and with a rolling pin pound butter until it’s about 19 cm x 19 cm. Trim / straighten the edges of the butter and put the trimmings on top of the square. Now pound lightly until you have a final square of 17 cm x 17 cm. Wrap in paper and refrigerate the butter slab until needed.
Take the dough out of the fridge. With a rolling pin roll out the dough disc into a 26 cm x 26 cm square. Try to get the square as perfect as possible and with an even thickness. Get the slab of butter from the fridge. Place the dough square so one of the sides of the square is facing you and place the butter slab on it with a 45 degree angle to the dough so a point of the butter square is facing you. Fold a flap of dough over the butter, so the point of the dough reaches the center of the butter. Do the same with the three other flaps. The edges of the dough flaps should slightly overlap to fully enclose the butter. With the palm of your hand lightly press the edges to seal the seams.
Now the dough with the sealed in butter needs to be rolled out. With a lightly floured rolling pin start rolling out, on a lightly flour dusted surface, the dough to a rectangle of 20 x 60 cm. Start rolling from the center of the dough towards the edges, and not from one side of the dough all the way to the other side. This technique helps you to keep the dough at an even thickness. You can also rotate your dough 180 degrees to keep it more even, because you tend to use more pressure when rolling away from you than towards yourself. You can use these techniques during all the rolling steps of this recipe. Aim at lengthening the dough instead of making it wider and try to keep all edges as straight as possible.
Fold the dough letter style, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes (fold one third of the dough on top of itself and then fold the other side over it). Repeat the rolling and folding two more times (ending up with 27 layers of butter in total), each time rolling until the dough is about 20 cm x 60 cm. After each fold you should turn the dough 90 degrees before rolling again. The open ‘end’ of the dough should be towards you every time when rolling out the dough (you can see this in our croissant making video at around 3:40 minutes). After the second turn, again give it a 30 minute rest in the fridge. After the third turn you leave the dough in the fridge overnight until day 3, the actual croissant making day!
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm
- Fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm
- Fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm
- Fold
- Refrigerate until day 3
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 110 cm
Also see complete time table at bottom of page
Day 3
Dividing the dough
Take the dough from the fridge. Lightly flour your work surface. Now very gently roll the dough into a long and narrow strip of 20 cm x 110 cm. If the dough starts to resist too much or shrink back during this process you can fold it in thirds and give it a rest in the fridge for 10 to 20 minutes before continuing. Do not fight the dough, when the dough refuses to get any longer, rest it in the fridge! It is such a shame to ruin two days of work.
When your dough has reached its intended shape, carefully lift it a few centimeters to allow it to naturally shrink back from both sides. This way it will not shrink when you cut it. Your strip of dough should be long enough to allow you to trim the ends to make them straight and still be left with a length of about 100 cm.
Shaping the croissants
For the next stage you will need a tape measure and a pizza wheel. Lay a tape measure along the top of the dough. With the wheel you mark the top of the dough at 12,5 cm intervals along the length (7 marks total). Now lay the tape measure along the bottom of the dough and make a mark at 6,25 cm. Then continue to make marks at 12,5 cm intervals from this point (8 marks total). So the bottom and the top marks do not align with each other and form the basis for your triangles.
Now make diagonal cuts starting from the top corner cutting down to the first bottom mark. Make diagonal cuts along the entire length of the dough. Then change the angle and make cuts from the other top corner to the bottom mark to create triangles. Again repeat this along the length of the dough. This way you will end up with 15 triangles and a few end pieces of dough.
Using your pizza wheel, make 1.5 cm long notches in the center of the short side of each dough triangle.
Now very gently elongate each triangle to about 25 cm. This is often done by hand, but we have found that elongating with a rolling pin, very carefully, almost without putting pressure on the dough triangle, works better for us. You can try both methods and see what you think gives the best result.
After you cut a notch in the middle of the short end of the triangle, try and roll the two wings by moving your hands outwards from the center, creating the desired shape with a thinner, longer point. Also try and roll the dough very tightly at the beginning and put enough pressure on the dough to make the layers stick together (but not so much as to damage the layers of course).
Proofing and baking
Arrange the shaped croissants on baking sheets, making sure to keep enough space between them so they will not touch when proofing and baking. Combine the egg with a teaspoon of water and whisk until smooth. Give the croissants their first thin coating of egg wash.
Proof the croissants draft-free at an ideal temperature of 24ยบC to 26.5ยบC / 76ยบF to 79ยบF (above that temperature there is a big chance butter will leak out!). We use our small Rofco B20 stone oven as a croissant proofing cabinet by preheating it for a minute to 25ยบC / 77ยบF. It retains this temperature for a long time because of the oven stones and isolation. The proofing should take about 2 hours. You should be able to tell if they are ready by carefully shaking the baking sheet and see if the croissants slightly wiggle. You should also be able to see the layers of dough when looking at your croissants from the side.
Preheat the oven at 200ยบC / 390ยบF convection or 220ยบC / 430ยบF conventional oven.
Right before baking, give the croissants their second thin coat of egg wash. We bake the croissants in our big convection oven for 6 minutes at 195ยบC / 385ยบF, then lowering the temperature to 165ยบC / 330ยบF, and bake them for another 9 minutes. Hamelman suggest baking the croissants for 18 to 20 minutes at 200ยบC / 390ยบF , turning your oven down a notch if you think the browning goes too quickly. But you really have to learn from experience and by baking several batches what the ideal time and temperature is for your own oven. Take out of the oven, leave for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.
Latest way of baking; We heat up our double fan big convection oven at 200ยบC, when heated up put the croissants in the oven and directly lower it to 175ยบC. We bake them for 10 minutes at 175ยบC, they will have a nice brown color by now, then lower the temperature to 150ยบC, and bake them for another 6 minutes.
Best eaten while warm and fresh of course. Croissant we don’t eat or share within a day we freeze. We put them in the preheated oven (180ยบC / 355ยบF) for 8 minutes straight from the freezer. Nothing wrong with that, croissants eaten nice and warm, almost as good as the fresh onesโฆalmost!
Croissant Time Table
Times are an indication and also depend on your experience with the recipe
Try to work swift but precise and take extra fridge time if needed!
Day 1 – Make initial dough
- 21.00 h – Knead for 3 minutes and store in fridge for 12 hours
Day 2 – Laminate the dough
- 09.00 h – Make butter slab and refrigerate till needed
- 09.05 h – Roll dough disc into square
- 09.10 h – Seal butter in dough
- 09.15 h – Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm and fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- 09.50 h – Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm and fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- 10.25 h – Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm and fold
- 11.00 h – Refrigerate until day 3
Day 3 – Dividing, Shaping, proofing and baking
- 09.00 h – Roll out to 20 cm x 110 cm – part 1
- 09.05 h – Often needed! Take 20 min. fridge time if length not in one go
- 09.25 h – Roll out to 20 cm x 110 cm – part 2
- 09.30 h – Divide and shape the croissants
- 09.40 h – First coat of egg wash
- 09.45 h – Proof to perfection (indication 2 hours)
- 11.45 h – Second coat of egg wash
- 11.50 h – Bake for 15-18 minutes
- 12.10 h – Ready!
Amy says
Just made my first croissants using your recipe, tips, and tricks. It worked great!! Thank you!
Ronda says
This is very much worth the time and effort. It was a lot of work but the end result was delicious, buttery crossaints! I will make it again, for sure!
david says
Hello weekend baker
I have one question:after kneading the dough ingredients, do you not let the dough rise say until say double in size and then punch down before forming the disk and storing in fridge overnight?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello David,
No we do not, you can best stick to the instructions exactly as we have written them down.
Robyn Gibson says
I value your thorough & honest instruction, thank you! I have done my own croissant project over many years. I have gained inspiration from many sources, but it gives me much gratification and a sense of pride that your recipe & procedure is nearly identical to mine. My family is also very grateful! ๐
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Robyn, for your comment and enthusiasm, we seem to have ‘like minds’. Wishing you many more excellent pastry projects and a wonderful December!
Hany Hassan says
Hallo,
I have a one question that can I replace the first egg wash before proofing with water using water spritzer
thanks
Hany Hassan says
Hallo,
I have a one question that can I replace the first egg wash before proofing with water using water spritzer
And I saw a lot of recipes adding an egg to the dough ingredients. . should I add it
thanks
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Hany,
We would recommend to use egg to protect the dough from drying out, it seals better than water. We never add an egg to the recipe, we would not think it will improve the structure or ‘bite’ of the pastry, but if you do so, you have to make sure to compensate for the liquid added to the dough.
Rhonda says
This is the BEST crossiant tutorial I have tried and the ONLY one I will ever use from now on. I have tried many. I am a home-baker, crossiants usually come out “decent” I stumbled on this recipe and technique and decided to try it in my home kitchen. I followed instructions exactly. By my 3rd batch I was pulling out crossiants that were PERFECT. I recently made 2 batches for a brunch for a bible study and the ladies were wanting to know who found an artisan bakery that does such amazing authentic crossiants in our small town lol. My very first batch didn’t have the perfect airy center and I had some butter leakage. After reading the tips I discovered that the problem was likely an issue when rolling and folding my dough. I decided to be more patient and when the dough started to resist I just stopped and popped it back in the fridge and let the gluten relax. A simple 10 to 15 min rest later it rolled with no resistance to the proper length. I also knew the butter leakage meant I should let them proof a bit longer and be patient for the perfect wobble. Once those 2 issues were fixed they come out perfectly with no butter leakage the layers are perfection with the perfect melt in your mouth flaky exterior and texture inside airy and beautiful. I used King Arthur all purpose flour and a really good pliable high quality butter from a locally owned nearby dairy (I think they feed their cows liquid gold) it does have a high fat butter content and low water ratio. The only thing not exact that I adjusted was the flour. I discovered that 450 grams of flour is best and I use the dough hook for about 2 to 3 mins (closer to 2) in my kitchen aide mixer at about a 3. That method has given me perfect croissants. Thank you! Thank you!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Rhonda,
You are our dream home baker. You just did everything absolutely spot on right and discovered all by yourself the importance of perfect lamination and proofing. We are so glad you got the results (and praise) you were looking for and that our recipe guided you to your perfect croissants.
We hope other bakers will read this comment too, because we keep telling the exact same thing over and over to many people, but it will be even better coming form you!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and taking the time to do so. And great to read about the butter too ๐
We hope you will have many more excellent bakes and moments to share them with family and friends.
Enjoy the Holiday season.
Greetings from the Low Countries,
Marieke & Ed
Lennyk says
the batch I made with 2min mix worked really great, got very nice honeycomb interior.
I would like to suggest that you emphasize this part of the recipe about minimal dough mixing.
I would also like to suggest that for new croissant bakers to simply try the folds without using the butter block so they can develop the feel and workflow to do this quickly before attempting with a butter block and wasting it.
more importantly they will get the experience of knowing the feel of dough “fighting back”
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Lennyk, for sharing your excellent tips and experience with the recipe and process.
Dan says
Lennyk, that’s great news at your end. I tried 3 minutes which is about when it came together, but I tried a mix of 2/3 unbleached flour and 1/3 pastry flour vs all unbleached flour — both Robin Hood brand, which should be 11% protein since the unbleached is 12% and the pastry flour 9%. I also switched to SAF gold yeast. No luck on getting the dough to extend. What brand of flour are you using?
Lenny says
I live in trinidad so I use a locally obtained flour which is about 11% also.
Try raising the hydration a little,
The recipe is 280g liquid for 500g flour.
Maybe try 300 or 310g.
Lennyk says
Ok, yesterday I did a batch with 2 min mix on lowest kitchenaid.
It actually came together around 1 min.
Laminated early this morning and was very very extensible.
Might do the final rollout and cut tonight.
Weekend Bakers says
Let us know how the turn out Lennyk!