Like a scientist, I began by separating each variable, testing them, tracking every detail in a small black notebook until I happened to hit on something that seemed to work.
At one point, I was sure the butter was the culprit. I knew that the quality at home was certainly inferior to European varieties, so I tested imported, local, and regular butters. I made sure to extract the extra water by hand, squeezing it as some pastry chefs do. (Some even cover their butter with flour and pound it to extract extra moisture.) I had read that making your own butter made a difference, so I decided to try that too.
I drove for hours to a farm across the border that produced unpasteurized cream—I had read that it made better-quality butter—and I researched different DIY churns, contraptions involving screwdrivers and large plastic tubs. I considered buying a churn, but when I pictured myself as a milkmaid I thought better of it. In the end, I tried a food processor method I had read about, and discovered, without a shadow of a doubt, that I, Jackie Kai Ellis, do not make good butter. I accepted this realization quickly, coming away with even less desire to become a milkmaid but with a greater respect for the craft of butter making. I continued to squeeze butter by hand, nearly developing carpal tunnel syndrome but finding that it gave me surprisingly soft skin.
Each test took three days, which meant I was working on three days of doughs before I could see what was wrong with the first batch. So, understandably, when I realized that a batch was a complete failure, I felt sheer annoyance. One day I threw the dough to the ground and walked away. For hours I refused to pick it up, and my defeat, the dough, sat on the floor and grew, unaware of its own smug face. Cleaning it up felt like adding insult to injury, and I was so purely resentful at what felt like a cosmic prank that I gave up.
III
A MONTH LATER, I WAS STRUCK AGAIN WITH A PANG OF desire for a croissant, and it was no use ignoring my sentimentality. I surrendered and picked up my little black notebook to review my past failures, trying to decipher in its code another way of approaching this mystery. I went out and bought a marble slab that fitted the width of my refrigerator exactly, so I could roll on a cool surface. I took every good recipe for a croissant I had, charted out the baker’s percentages of each component and started at one extreme, testing each ingredient in 5 percent increments until I reached the other extreme.
Slowly the dough began to feel as I remembered it in Paris: soft yet structured, yielding but still substantial. I began to test different combinations of lamination. There were simple folds, or folding the dough in half; letter folds, folding the dough in thirds; and book folds, which folded the dough into quarters from the outsides in like a book. I tried every possible combination to get the perfect one.
A few more successes and many more failures later, I impatiently waited as my kitchen filled with the warm aromas of yeasty bread and sweet, salty butter melting into itself. The timer sounded, and I opened the oven carefully to peek. I held my breath. Everything seemed to be going well—the croissants seemed to be rising high, the layers were as distinct as I remembered they were in Paris—but I would not allow myself high hopes. I had been tricked before, in this same way. I was wiser.
I allowed the croissants to cool slightly, then cut a few open to inspect the laminations, the crumb, and the profile. I made notes in the little black book, and, finally, I tasted. The crust shattered at the pressure of my mouth, the crumb was chewy and melted, and I tasted mornings in Paris.
THE CROISSANT
This is the recipe we use at Beaucoup Bakery, though I must be quite honest and advise you not to try it unless you are not expecting perfection. Perfection would only be possible with a lot of additional practice, additional research, and a lot of trial and error to adjust the recipe to the ingredients and tools available to you, your weather, and your own technique.
Croissants are so sensitive that even a small variation in a baker’s hand can cause a less-than-perfect result. The chefs at Beaucoup train for many months before they hit perfection, and even years later, their croissants can still turn out disappointingly, sometimes without rhyme or reason. A perfect croissant is elusive. There are different styles of viennoiseries: boulanger (a bread baker’s style, which is more rustic and not as refined), and pâtissier (a pastry chef’s style, which is much more like a fine work of pastry art). My idea of perfection is the latter. In my mind, a perfect croissant must be the color of a stick of cinnamon and be surprisingly light in the hand for its size. It must have defined layers like a fine pleated skirt. The shape must never be curved like a crescent moon or a pair of horns but straight, bulging in the center so it is shaped like a rounded diamond. The reason for this is that in France, curved croissants are those made with margarine and the straight croissant shape indicates that they are made with real butter. In my opinion, only those made of real butter—though it is harder to create the defined layers—are good croissants. The crust should be shatteringly crisp; flakes of it should scatter and fall all over your lap and face.
When judging the perfect croissant, you must cut it in half vertically along its belly to inspect its cross section. The rounder and higher the shape the better, and the structure on the inside should look like an open network of fine layers resembling a honeycomb. When you eat the croissant, the nuttiness and crispness of the exterior should be paired with a meltingly soft interior with just enough chew and bounce to satisfy the parts of us that need bread. The taste should be yeasty, a touch sour from the days of fermentation that are needed to develop it, and overwhelmingly buttery but not greasy. You should never need extra butter with a proper croissant; as with a perfect baguette, nothing else is needed. If the stars happen to align, and you are lucky enough to discover a tray of perfect croissants, it’s a rush, like a first kiss, the most glorious feeling of accomplishment and delight that spurs you to try again, and again. But in reality, on most days we are simply chasing that feeling, holding our breaths and the memory of it in our minds.
DAY ONE
This recipe will take about 3 days to make from start to finish. It does not require a lot of active time for the first and last day, but it cannot be rushed as the time is what develops the depth of flavor and allows the croissants to rise without overstressing the glutens.
INGREDIENTS FOR THE PRE-FERMENT
I prefer the method of starting the yeast in a pre-ferment because it deepens and develops the flavor of the dough. I have tried other quicker methods but found this to give the best flavor.
100 g flour, divided, T55 or equivalent (see note on flour on this page)
10 g instant yeast
100 g water at room temperature
In a medium bowl, whisk together 75 g of the flour and the yeast. Add the water and mix well with a spatula until it forms a smooth paste without any lumps. Scrape the sides of the bowl, making sure that all the paste is neatly at the base of the bowl. Dust the remaining 25 g of flour onto the paste, making sure to cover the surface evenly. Allow to rest in a warmish, draft-free room for about 1 hour, until the flour is very cracked on the surface and the pre-ferment has expanded to about double its original size.
INGREDIENTS FOR THE BASE DOUGH (DÉTREMPE)
450 g flour, T55 or equivalent (see note on flour on this page)
60 g granulated sugar
14 g fine sea salt
Pre-ferment from above
55 g unsalted butter, 84% milk fat or higher, at room temperature and cut into small pieces (see note on butter below)
175 g whole milk, 3.5% milk fat, at room temperature
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the pre-ferment and the butter pieces and begin to mix on the lowest setting. Add the milk in a steady stream while mixing, and allow the dough to knead slowly for 6 minutes or until the dough completely comes together into a smoothish ball. When poked, it will feel firm and bounce back slightly. It will feel like moist skin, not sticky or tacky.
Wrap th
e dough two times in plastic wrap, forming it into a rough 6 × 6-inch square. Allow it to rest at room temperature for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Place it in the freezer for 15 minutes to slow the yeast activity, flipping the dough at 7 minutes to ensure even cooling. Remove the dough from the freezer and place it in the refrigerator overnight until you are ready to laminate the following day.
THE BUTTER PACKAGE
375 g unsalted butter, 84% milk fat or higher, at slightly colder than room temperature
The intention here is to form a square of butter that is consistent in texture and thickness, and which will eventually be wrapped by the dough in the lamination process described on this page. In France, butter companies prepackage butter meant for lamination into sheets, which makes it easy to use; however, we have no such thing in North America of the same quality, so my solution was to create the sheets myself.
We are aiming to create a square butter sheet that will be easy to roll into thin sheets between the dough layers. Make sure the butter is pliable but not melted. If it melts, the milk solids and fat will separate, making the structure of the butter inconsistent.
Place the butter on the center of a large piece of parchment paper (about 16 × 16 inches). Flatten it slightly and fold the opposite sides of the parchment together to create a roughly 6 × 6-inch square, being sure to crease the edges to maintain a good square shape.
Once the package of butter is enclosed (it will not seem neat and tidy) use a rolling pin to push the butter to all corners and edges, making a flat sheet of butter about ½ inch thick. Be sure to roll to the edges, eliminating any air pockets, which will create inconsistencies in your croissant. Roll the package to a consistent thickness throughout and place in the refrigerator until you are ready to laminate the following day.
DAY TWO
Lamination is a specific process of repeatedly layering butter and dough to create flaky viennoiseries such as croissants, pains au chocolat, pains aux raisins, puff pastry, chaussons aux pommes, Danishes, brioches feuilletées, to name a few. The process is generally the same where a large amount of butter is encased by dough and rolled and folded several times to create layers of butter alternating with dough.
The flakiness is created when the heat from the oven during baking creates steam from the moisture in the butter, causing the dough to rise and expand with pockets. The butter also separates each layer by nature of its oil, and with the rise of the yeast, this all creates the puffy, layered pastry we know as a croissant.
The variations in lamination techniques are numerous. Some prefer to smear the butter into the dough initially, some pound the butter with flour to extract extra moisture and bring the consistency closer to that of the dough, making it easier to roll. Some vary their number of “turns” or how they fold the dough on itself, and still there are variations in working temperature, or where they fold, how they enclose the butter into the dough. There are “letter folds” or “single turns,” which is folding the rolled dough into thirds like a letter. There are “book folds” or “double turns,” which is when the rolled dough is folded toward the center, 2 times, resembling closing a book twice. Traditionally, croissant consists of 3 “letter folds” making 27 layers of butter and dough. After many tests and variations, I found that 2 book folds worked for me, and 1 book fold and 1 letter fold worked best for my instructors. Some even just fold the dough in half to create an extra “half turn.” They all work; it depends on the numerous variances in ingredients, tools, and other environmental factors. It is a fine balancing act, and what’s “right,” I’ve discovered, is whatever works best.
The goal of lamination is to get very even layers of butter and dough. This can be done best when the dough and butter are the same consistency and texture so that they roll out at the same rate. If the butter is softer than the dough, the butter will be squeezed out from between the layers of the dough. If the butter is harder than the dough, it begins to separate and crack within the layers like icebergs, and this creates a greasy croissant with imperfect lamination. As different doughs will have different textures, and different butters will melt or be pliable at different temperatures, you must feel the ingredients regularly to monitor their consistency. Generally, the dough needs to be colder than the butter to mimic the texture of a pliable butter. And since the butter cannot be so warm that it melts into the dough, generally the dough must adjust to the butter.
This recipe was perfected using a dough sheeter, a commercial machine that rolls the dough evenly and quickly, allowing the dough and butter to maintain their temperatures during lamination. Rolling by hand is not impossible but will require you to place the dough in the refrigerator to cool for a few minutes, until it is just cold enough to roll without melting the butter into the dough but not so cold that the butter becomes harder than the dough. If rolling by hand, it needs to be done fast enough that the dough doesn’t begin to proof, or the air bubbles will cause the lamination to be disrupted.
LAMINATION AND ROLLING
1 butter package (as described on this page)
1 dough package from Day One
Flour for dusting
Take the butter package out to temper it to the consistency of cold dough. You can re-roll the butter package to make it pliable and consistent because when it is tempering, often the edges are warmer than the center.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator, and on a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 6 × 13-inch rectangle, always rolling as square as possible so the wastage is decreased. Place the butter in the center of the dough and wrap the dough around the butter. Pinch the dough to seal the butter in, making sure to eliminate any air bubbles or excess flour.
When rolling the dough, you must remember to alternate the direction with each turn. Since the dough is being rolled and stretched longer in one direction with each turn, it must be rolled in the other direction the following time or the dough will be stretched too far in one direction, making it impossible to roll as well as weakening the gluten structure. For example, if the dough was just rolled to 6 × 13 inches, the following roll should elongate the 6-inch length.
Roll the dough to 24 × 7 inches (the pinched ends should be the short side this time) in as straight a rectangle as possible. Cut 1–2 inches off each end to eliminate the excess dough that does not contain any butter sandwiched between it. Make a book fold, wrap in plastic, and let rest in the refrigerator to relax the glutens, but not so long that the butter hardens too much, 10–15 minutes.
Repeat the last step, making sure the open ends become the short end this turn and resting again in the refrigerator.
The rolling for this step tends to be a bit tricky by hand and will require you to place the dough in and out of the refrigerator to keep relaxing the glutens until you can roll the dough to the desired thickness. Roll out the dough to 13 × 15 inches, 3.5–4.5 mm thick, and cut the edges so that the true layer of lamination can be free to expand.
To cut your croissant into triangle shapes, begin to measure intervals of 3 inches along the longer side of the dough and make small cuts to indicate the intervals. Along the opposite side, measure 1.5 inches inward from the edge and make small cuts to indicate intervals of 3 inches. Using a long, sharp knife, cut from marker to marker on the opposite sides in a zigzag pattern, to create long triangles of dough.
Once the triangles are cut, use your fingers to lightly stretch the triangle lengthwise and then roll tightly from the wide end to the thin point, ensuring that it is evenly centered. If not, the croissant will proof lopsided. Place the croissant on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper with the “tail” of the croissant tucked under its belly.
Repeat with the remaining triangles, wrap in plastic, and place in the refrigerator overnight to begin cold proofing.
DAY THREE
PROOFING
Remove the croissants from the refrigerator and arrange them on sheet trays lined with parchment paper with 3–5 inches of space between them. Allow them to sit at room te
mperature, in the shade and covered lightly with plastic wrap for 4–7 hours (depending on the ambient temperature), or until the croissants have doubled to tripled in size and they look like wobbly pillows.
BAKING
EGG WASH
1 egg
1 tbsp whipping cream
½ tsp fine sea salt
In a small bowl, gently whisk all the ingredients together.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Using a pastry brush, gently brush the egg wash onto the tops of the proofed croissants.
Place the croissants in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. Without opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 375°F and bake for another 7 minutes. Turn the trays at this point and bake for a further 5 minutes, or until the outsides are golden brown. If you have a convection oven, turn off the fan, or the crust will be too dry.
Allow the croissants to cool on the trays until they are warm enough to touch. Cut one open to inspect your lamination and taste the flavor development.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
A NOTE ON THE MEASUREMENTS: As with most professional recipes, the measurements in this recipe are indicated in weight, which is much more precise than volume. Everyone has a different way of measuring; some people tend to pack an ingredient into a cup, whereas others will lightly sprinkle it in. This creates a large variance in the amount of the actual ingredient added. For example, one cup of flour measured by one person could weigh over 0.5 oz (more or less) than when measured by another. With croissants, if the balance of the recipe is changed, it can also drastically change your final results. Using weight measurements ensures consistency and accuracy.
A NOTE ON FLOUR: I have specified an equivalent to a T55 flour. T55 is a type of French flour that performs most like an all-purpose flour in North America, though all-purpose flours all over the world are extremely varied and behave vastly differently. What a French T55 can do is be both elastic and durable at once. The glutens in this flour are much like a strong elastic band that can be stretched easily but doesn’t break. Many strong flours in Canada are like strong but brittle bands that tear easily when they are stretched, making it difficult to roll the layers thin. On the other hand, the softer flours don’t have any elasticity at all, making it impossible to hold the air the dough needs to rise. A firmer dough will create a flakier product, though the firmer the dough, the more risk there is that it will tear, which is why some add a good amount of butter to it to add suppleness.
The Measure of My Powers: A Memoir of Food, Misery, and Paris Page 15