Learning and improving to get to that perfect croissant, meanwhile intensely enjoying the eating!
MAKING & BAKING CROISSANTS: THE MOVIE
This video shows us making classic French style croissants. You can find the croissant recipe with detailed description and lots of pictures here.
It also contains a time lapsed oven shot of the baking of the croissants.
You can also keep track of our croissant baking efforts through our Croissant Making Log
Henk says
I’ve been making croissants for like 8 times or more and I always fail during the tourage. During the tourage butter is coming through/out of the dough and rolling the dough becomes harder then. I put the dough with butter at the end of every fold in the fridge for 30 mins. What do I wrong?
stone says
I’m just getting back into baking after many years away from it. Haven’t had time.I followed a recipe to the tee a couple of days ago. It was one that you can hit a button and they send you the ingredients. Even with my limited knowledge I felt that I was being set up for failure at every step. Just watched your video and am about to give it another go with your directions. I was right about the being set up bit (do they think they’ll sell more stuff this way). I feel very confident now. Thanks guys Stone
Suzanna says
Beautifully executed! I was looking for ideas in rolling the butter for croissants. Going to try this.
Thank you!
Weekend Bakers says
Let us know about your results Suzanna!
Sam says
I made this for the first time, I thought it worked well, except the final result was quite different inside, were yours are airy, mine are flaky layers on the outside, inside was a single doughy layer. I put the dry instant yeast directly in the dough, should I have started the yeast with hot water first? Thank you, and I’m excited to get this perfected!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Sam,
It is no problem to put the instant yeast directly in the dough, we do this too. But something went wrong with the building up of the layers. This can have several causes but comes down to things like being new to the process and taking longer to do the steps, pressing too hard on the dough, not working with enough precision, and also the shaping, the proofing and also the baking can all be involved. It is perfectly normal to get such a result the first time. Most people need to make them 3 to 4 times to get the general feeling for the process. There is no substitute for practice and experience. There is no way to hide little mistakes in your technique when making croissants, so work very precise and follow the instructions to the letter. One small mistake is no problem but several small mistakes add up!
Hope you will give it another try and we are sure you will already see improvement.
Harrison Galante says
I actually had the same experience as Sam and have made them well in the past (so I don’t think it’s just about experience). I have 2 questions:
1) Why do you choose to use the square butter block approach as opposed to setting a small rectangle of butter inside a larger rectangle of dough, then doing a tri-fold. In this case, you start out with 3 layers, and with the square approach you start out with 2.
2) Additionally, since you start out with 2 layers and only fold 3 times you end up with 54 layers. I suspect this is why the layers aren’t as defined for people like me and Sam, because there aren’t as many of them. If you do a tri-fold with the butter block and then do 4 folds instead of 3, you end up with 243 layers. Pretty drastic difference.
I’d love to hear your thoughts! I bake a lot, but still committed to learning as much as possible.
Thanks,
Harrison
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Harrison,
May we ask if you already made a croissant with this many layers (243) or is it a theoretical question?
The possible damage to layers increases with the number of layers, so for most people 27 like we do (not 54) should give a good result, as you can hopefully judge from our pictures. For us it is not about the number but the quality of the layers. Of course other methods are valid too, if it gets closer to the result you are aiming for.
Aaron says
I’ve just attempted my first go. I took the butter from the fridge and placed into the dough to roll out, however the butter didn’t budge and I ended up with all dough at one end, my butter barely moved. Should I have taken the butter out of the fridge to allow it to soften first? Any tips? I’m pretty sure I have just ruined my first batch LOL.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Aaron,
Yes, you are right. The butter needs to be pliable but not too soft, like we point out in the tips above the recipe. We use an organic butter with a low water content. A higher water content tends to make butter hard, which promotes tearing and breaking and ruins the layers. The butter we use has ‘at least 82%’ butterfat’. So find the right butter and make sure it has the right ‘pliability’ before rolling out.
Good luck with it!