Croissant

The other day Jane saw my Ham Chim Peng post and she tak boleh tahan (can’t wait) and tempted her to try. On the other hand, I saw her Bourke Street Croissant and I also tak boleh tahan (can’t wait) and tempted to try, hahaha..Later her sister Helena also made. I told them how nice if three of us are living nearby, then must be very fun, we will non-stop baking and eating, hehehe..I love croissant, usually I will take croissant first whenever I take buffet breakfast in a hotel…

The most delicious croissant I took was in Switzerland at Hotel Gasthof Tiefenau. They serve croissant daily and other types of pastry, all were yummy. I hope one day I can visit this hotel again and learn making croissant from the chef here. Dream first !!

I did not try Bourke Street recipe this time, as it look quite complicated, I wait till I have confident then I will try this recipe. Instead I tried a recipe that I found in a French’s lady blog (I supposed she is a French) and use Google translate into English. Why I choose her recipe, because I like her dough laminating process (i.e. incorporating butter into the dough) by spreading the butter (under room temperature) but not like the usual recipe which requires to incorporating cold butter into dough that I feel is not easy to handle.

shaping

This time I still failed on the laminating part, butter still leak out and torn layer. Next time, i must try to do in a air-cond room.

I got very flaky crust if I followed the recipe to bake at 240c for 12mins but it looks burnt. I tried to adapt the Bourke Street method which pre-heated 240c and change to 190c for 12-15mins, nicer colour but the crust is not so flaky. Actually i prefer the first "chow tar" croissant because the flaky crust  and nice aorma, eventhough it look dark,.

The taste of this croissant is there, very close to that one i had in Switzerland, nice aroma, flaky and fluffy, but I was little bit disappointed of the texture inside, not many layers and quite soft. I blamed myself of poor handling of laminating process.

Latest Update!! I was wrong!! my son Desmond just took this croissant, and i can see the multi-layers. I guess it need some time to dry out. The above croissant wan taken just few minutes came out from oven this morning, thatswhy the texture inside still look soft. So happy to see this result!

Croissant
(recipe source: adapted from here)
Makes 9

1 and 1/4tsp instant yeast
45 ml warm water (less than 100 ° F/38 ° C)
1tsp caster sugar

250 g all purpose flour
2tsp caster sugar
1tsp fine salt
125ml milk
30 ml of neutral oil (sunflower, canola, corn oil)

120g unsalted butter at room temperature

1 egg yolk, for egg wash

To make dough
1. Mix yeast, warm water and sugar in a small bowl for 5mins.
2. Heat the milk until lukewarm, then dissolve salt and sugar in the milk.
3. Add flour, yeast mixture and oil in a mixing bowl. Slowly add in milk mixture and combine well.
4. Knead the dough until smooth. Place the dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
5. Let dough rise at room temperature for 3hours or until triple in size. (I only wait for 1hour)

Folding
1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface into a large rectangle of 14 x 8 inch (35 cm x 20 cm).
2. Spread butter on 2 / 3 of the dough and fold in 3 (The non-buttered the middle, then the last 1 / 3 above). Cover with plastic sheet and refrigerate for 30mins.
3. Take the dough out of the fridge and rotate the dough 90 degree so that the dough will be rolled in opposite direction from previous fold. Repeat this folding and resting process twice more.
4. After the final round, refrigerate the dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, 5 hours or overnight.

Shaping
1. On floured surface, roll dough into a rectangle 15 in. x 6 in. (38 cm x 15 cm ).
2. Using a pizza cutter, cut triangles 3 inches (7.5 cm) core.
3. Starting from the base and roll up towards the tip, pressing the tip of triangle to make the triangle longer. Pull away two corners at the base and roll it towards the tip to secure.
4. Place croissants 2inches (5cm) apart from each other on the baking pan lined with parchment paper.
5. Cover with plastic wrap/cloth and let rise for 1hour in a warm place (72F/22C) or until they have doubled in size.

Baking
1. Preheat oven to 475F (240C).
2. Mix the egg yolk with a teaspoon of water, then brush on the croissants.
3. Bake the croissants in the oven for 12mins, until top is golden OR reduce oven temp to 190C and bake for about 15 mins, or until a deep golden colour.
4. Remove the croissants from the oven and place on wire rack. Cool slightly on tray before serving.

A Malaysian way of serving croissant, stuff with ikan bilis (anchovies) and onion chili sambal, YUM YUM!

Actually i making another batch today, this time i changed to the combination of bread flour and cake flour..