My Very Own Cooking School

I really enjoy cooking and baking and learning new things to make in the kitchen, so I decided I'm going to keep track of the new things I learn and share them here in case anyone is interested.

So for my first lesson, I learned how to make croissants.  I knew this would be a big, time consuming project, but I also knew it would be a yummy and fun to try, so here is what I did.

First I had to find a recipe and after looking through a lot of them, I decided on this one from epicurious.  The actual shaping and baking directions can be found here.

After I found the recipe, I watched a bunch of youtube videos to see the technique and read through all the recipe reviews and felt confident I was ready to try it myself.

The dough was really easy to make and I love to knead a nice smooth dough, so that was fun.  Then I had to make the butter piece, which I did by folding off the dimensions listed in the recipe into parchment paper and putting 3 sticks of butter in it and rolling it out to the exact measurements.  After chilling that, I had a nice flat rectangle of butter.  I rolled out my dough into a bigger rectangle and started my folds.

You fold the butter into the dough like you would fold a letter to fit an envelope and then turn it and roll the whole thing out into another big rectangle.

Then you fold it up again and chill it.  

The recipe said 1 hr in the fridge in between each fold, but I did 20 min in the freezer instead because I'm not that patient and you have to fold it 5 times!

There is a lot of rolling out going on to create all the flaky layers.  It was a good workout, especially since the dough was cold and you had to work quickly so the butter layers wouldn't get too warm and melt into the dough.

So after all the rolling and chilling it was finally time to shape the croissants and let them rise.  One of the reviews I read said your risen rolls should wiggle like jello and you should be able to see the layers. Mine wiggled a little, but I was definitely excited to see the layers.  Plus it was 11:30 at night by this time, so I was really ready to bake them and be done with it all!  

The recipe didn't call for an egg wash, but all of the videos showed them and said I should egg wash them before they rise and after they have risen so that's how you get the nice brown color.  

I probably should have waited a little longer before cutting mine open, but it was midnight and the house smelled so intoxicatingly delicious that I just couldn't wait.  I was thrilled to see all the layers and they tasted great!  I ended up freezing half of the dough, so I'll be able to make them again!  (Luckily I already did all the rolling and folding steps, so it will be much less time consuming next time)

Next time I make them I think I will do a little research on what to do to make sure they don't fall in the oven.  I could tell mine fell a little.  They still tasted great, but I think they could have looked a little nicer.