Hello Frosty,
Just turn your oven on for 30 seconds to a minute, then turn it off again. Let it stabilize for a minute, then put the dough in.
It is best if you can measure the inside temperature of your oven with something like an infrared thermometer because it is important the temperature does not get above the 78 Fahrenheit with this dough, to avoid butter leaking out. If you give it a few tries and measure, at a certain point you will know exactly what to do and how to slightly warm up your oven to use it as a cosy proofing place for your dough. But always make sure to turn the oven off, after the certain amount of seconds, it could be something you easily forget to do, because you are not used to turning it off again so quickly.
There are also people who make a proofing ‘cabinet’ with a few tools like a box and a light bulb for instance. Search for DIY proofing solutions and you will get many suggestions.
Best of luck with the croissant making!

Hello Melly,
We understand your problem with the space. We would suggest first rolling the total amount of dough out as far as you have space to roll out, be it 60 or 80 cm or something like that). Then cut it in halve and roll out both to 55 cm. You will have two more sides with some extra ‘end pieces’ for the two extra sides, but do not throw them away. Just roll them up with a bit of ‘flair and fantasy’ and bake them too.
It would indeed be more of a hassle to make halve a batch and just a shame to go through the whole process not being able to handle the dough well enough and end up with about 7 croissants.
We hope it will work out well for you!

Enjoy the baking

Can’t wait to try these recipies out, thank you!

Hello Pavithrah,
First of all, if possible, we always want to encourage you to completely stick to the recipe as we describe it and not alter anything. If you have established that the croissants are under-proofed you can try to take them out of the chiller sooner and proof them for longer. Really try to take the proofing to the edge without over-proofing of course, but if your dough needs more time (or maybe also a warmer environment) just take that time until you are satisfied the dough is well proofed.

As we say in the recipe above:

Always make sure the croissants are proofed to perfection before you bake them. This could often mean, allowing them extra time at room temperature after the night in the fridge. If you want perfect croissants, the right proofing stage is key, otherwise you could end up with croissants that are flat, butter leaking out, no beautiful layers and so on.

Good luck with baking and perfecting the croissants

Depending on experience and how you handle the dough, it will take at least 6 to 7 hours, so you should make sure to be able to take a whole day where you can concentrate on the recipe.

starting the original 3 day version with better butter now!

Hello. You have to leave the dough for about 5mins on the bench/table after removing from fridge. It’s shattered because the butter was still very cold. Letting the dough come up to temps a bit will offset that.

She said she is making them for her nephew who cannot have dairy.

So much work and you are using margarine? No way I will do that. Spend a little more money to buy 85% full fat quality brand unsalted butter and you will get fantastic croissants! 👩‍🍳Thanks

Cheers
Ricardo

I should have also added that I had to use water in place of the milk (due to no dairy) but I had done that previously on a batch that used butter and had no problems with it.

Hello CE,
Your assessment is accurate and whenever butter uses out something is wrong of course, so maybe the weather was different too that day and you needed more fridge time because the handling of the dough took you longer.
Keep making notes of what works and what doesn’t and just go on to the next badge!

Thank you! Not sure how I missed that.