It’s all about the layers…
Klik hier voor Nederlandse versie
With this recipe we want to give you the exact directions on how we go about making classic French croissants. The recipe is an adaptation from the recipe for Classic Croissants by Jeffrey Hamelman. We started out largely following the instructions for his recipe, changed everything to our beloved metric system and found out some worthwhile croissant knowledge of our own along the way. Hopefully enough to justify sharing it all with you and inspiring you to give croissant baking a shot yourself.
Before you start we can recommend watching our croissant making video to get a general feel for the recipe. You can also check out our croissant making log where we keep track of our own croissant baking adventures. For answers to your croissant questions you can check out the Frequently Asked Croissant Questions section.
This recipe will yield about 15 good croissants plus some leftover bits which you can use to make a few, slightly odd shaped ones, or other inventive croissant-like creations.
If at first you don’t succeed, maybe you can take comfort from the fact that our first efforts were not very ‘croissant worthy’. But as you can see we persevered and got better…But we have to admit it is and always will be a tricky process. You have to work precise and be focused to get good results. So away with screaming children, hyperactive animals and all other things distracting! Put on some appropriate croissant making music and lets get to it…
Please read the following tips;
According to Raymond Calvel croissants laminated with margarine are formed into the crescent shape, while croissants laminated with butter are left in the straight form. We say, use whichever shape you like best, but do use butter!
The croissant recipe
Ingredients for the croissant dough
500 g French Type 55 flour or unbleached all-purpose flour / plain flour (extra for dusting)
140 g water
140 g whole milk (you can take it straight from the fridge)
55 g sugar
40 g soft unsalted butter
11 g instant yeast
12 g salt
Other ingredients
makes 15
280 g cold unsalted butter for laminating
1 egg + 1 tsp water for the egg wash
Day 1
Making the croissant dough
We usually do this part in the evening. Combine the dough ingredients and knead for 3 minutes, at low to medium speed, until the dough comes together and you’ve reached the stage of low to moderate gluten development. You do not want too much gluten development because you will struggle with the dough fighting back during laminating. Shape the dough like a disc, not a ball, before you refrigerate it, so it will be easier to roll it into a square shape the following day. Place the disc on a plate, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge overnight.
Day 2
Laminating the dough
Cut the cold butter (directly from the fridge) lengthwise into 1,25 cm thick slabs. Arrange the pieces of butter on waxed paper to form a square of about 15 cm x 15 cm. Cover the butter with another layer of waxed paper and with a rolling pin pound butter until it’s about 19 cm x 19 cm. Trim / straighten the edges of the butter and put the trimmings on top of the square. Now pound lightly until you have a final square of 17 cm x 17 cm. Wrap in paper and refrigerate the butter slab until needed.
Take the dough out of the fridge. With a rolling pin roll out the dough disc into a 26 cm x 26 cm square. Try to get the square as perfect as possible and with an even thickness. Get the slab of butter from the fridge. Place the dough square so one of the sides of the square is facing you and place the butter slab on it with a 45 degree angle to the dough so a point of the butter square is facing you. Fold a flap of dough over the butter, so the point of the dough reaches the center of the butter. Do the same with the three other flaps. The edges of the dough flaps should slightly overlap to fully enclose the butter. With the palm of your hand lightly press the edges to seal the seams.
Now the dough with the sealed in butter needs to be rolled out. With a lightly floured rolling pin start rolling out, on a lightly flour dusted surface, the dough to a rectangle of 20 x 60 cm. Start rolling from the center of the dough towards the edges, and not from one side of the dough all the way to the other side. This technique helps you to keep the dough at an even thickness. You can also rotate your dough 180 degrees to keep it more even, because you tend to use more pressure when rolling away from you than towards yourself. You can use these techniques during all the rolling steps of this recipe. Aim at lengthening the dough instead of making it wider and try to keep all edges as straight as possible.
Fold the dough letter style, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes (fold one third of the dough on top of itself and then fold the other side over it). Repeat the rolling and folding two more times (ending up with 27 layers of butter in total), each time rolling until the dough is about 20 cm x 60 cm. After each fold you should turn the dough 90 degrees before rolling again. The open ‘end’ of the dough should be towards you every time when rolling out the dough (you can see this in our croissant making video at around 3:40 minutes). After the second turn, again give it a 30 minute rest in the fridge. After the third turn you leave the dough in the fridge overnight until day 3, the actual croissant making day!
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm
- Fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm
- Fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm
- Fold
- Refrigerate until day 3
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 110 cm
Also see complete time table at bottom of page
Day 3
Dividing the dough
Take the dough from the fridge. Lightly flour your work surface. Now very gently roll the dough into a long and narrow strip of 20 cm x 110 cm. If the dough starts to resist too much or shrink back during this process you can fold it in thirds and give it a rest in the fridge for 10 to 20 minutes before continuing. Do not fight the dough, when the dough refuses to get any longer, rest it in the fridge! It is such a shame to ruin two days of work.
When your dough has reached its intended shape, carefully lift it a few centimeters to allow it to naturally shrink back from both sides. This way it will not shrink when you cut it. Your strip of dough should be long enough to allow you to trim the ends to make them straight and still be left with a length of about 100 cm.
Shaping the croissants
For the next stage you will need a tape measure and a pizza wheel. Lay a tape measure along the top of the dough. With the wheel you mark the top of the dough at 12,5 cm intervals along the length (7 marks total). Now lay the tape measure along the bottom of the dough and make a mark at 6,25 cm. Then continue to make marks at 12,5 cm intervals from this point (8 marks total). So the bottom and the top marks do not align with each other and form the basis for your triangles.
Now make diagonal cuts starting from the top corner cutting down to the first bottom mark. Make diagonal cuts along the entire length of the dough. Then change the angle and make cuts from the other top corner to the bottom mark to create triangles. Again repeat this along the length of the dough. This way you will end up with 15 triangles and a few end pieces of dough.
Using your pizza wheel, make 1.5 cm long notches in the center of the short side of each dough triangle.
Now very gently elongate each triangle to about 25 cm. This is often done by hand, but we have found that elongating with a rolling pin, very carefully, almost without putting pressure on the dough triangle, works better for us. You can try both methods and see what you think gives the best result.
After you cut a notch in the middle of the short end of the triangle, try and roll the two wings by moving your hands outwards from the center, creating the desired shape with a thinner, longer point. Also try and roll the dough very tightly at the beginning and put enough pressure on the dough to make the layers stick together (but not so much as to damage the layers of course).
Proofing and baking
Arrange the shaped croissants on baking sheets, making sure to keep enough space between them so they will not touch when proofing and baking. Combine the egg with a teaspoon of water and whisk until smooth. Give the croissants their first thin coating of egg wash. You do not need to cover the croissants with anything, the egg wash will prevent the dough from drying out.
Proof the croissants draft-free at an ideal temperature of 24ºC to 26.5ºC / 76ºF to 79ºF (above that temperature there is a big chance butter will leak out!). We use our small Rofco B20 stone oven as a croissant proofing cabinet by preheating it for a minute to 25ºC / 77ºF. It retains this temperature for a long time because of the oven stones and isolation. The proofing should take about 2 hours. You should be able to tell if they are ready by carefully shaking the baking sheet and see if the croissants slightly wiggle. You should also be able to see the layers of dough when looking at your croissants from the side.
Preheat the oven at 200ºC / 390ºF convection or 220ºC / 430ºF conventional oven.
Right before baking, give the croissants their second thin coat of egg wash. We bake the croissants in our big convection oven for 6 minutes at 195ºC / 385ºF, then lowering the temperature to 165ºC / 330ºF, and bake them for another 9 minutes. Hamelman suggest baking the croissants for 18 to 20 minutes at 200ºC / 390ºF , turning your oven down a notch if you think the browning goes too quickly. But you really have to learn from experience and by baking several batches what the ideal time and temperature is for your own oven. Take out of the oven, leave for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.
Latest way of baking; We heat up our double fan big convection oven at 200ºC, when heated up put the croissants in the oven and directly lower it to 175ºC. We bake them for 10 minutes at 175ºC, they will have a nice brown color by now, then lower the temperature to 150ºC, and bake them for another 6 minutes.
Best eaten while warm and fresh of course. Croissant we don’t eat or share within a day we freeze. We put them in the preheated oven (180ºC / 355ºF) for 8 minutes straight from the freezer. Nothing wrong with that, croissants eaten nice and warm, almost as good as the fresh ones…almost!
Croissant Time Table
Times are an indication and also depend on your experience with the recipe
Try to work swift but precise and take extra fridge time if needed!
Day 1 – Make initial dough
- 21.00 h – Knead for 3 minutes and store in fridge for 12 hours
Day 2 – Laminate the dough
- 09.00 h – Make butter slab and refrigerate till needed
- 09.05 h – Roll dough disc into square
- 09.10 h – Seal butter in dough
- 09.15 h – Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm and fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- 09.50 h – Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm and fold
- Refrigerate 30 minutes
- 10.25 h – Rotate 90 degrees
- Roll out to 20 cm x 60 cm and fold
- 11.00 h – Refrigerate until day 3
Day 3 – Dividing, Shaping, proofing and baking
- 09.00 h – Roll out to 20 cm x 110 cm – part 1
- 09.05 h – Often needed! Take 20 min. fridge time if length not in one go
- 09.25 h – Roll out to 20 cm x 110 cm – part 2
- 09.30 h – Divide and shape the croissants
- 09.40 h – First coat of egg wash
- 09.45 h – Proof to perfection (indication 2 hours)
- 11.45 h – Second coat of egg wash
- 11.50 h – Bake for 15-18 minutes
- 12.10 h – Ready!
HY says
I’m from Malaysia, hot and humid. I made the croissants today, wasn’t total disaster, during the third rolling and rotation butter leaked out the dough, it was a mess there on and after. Couldn’t shape the croissant, but it still tastes good, except tad bit salty and strong yeasty taste.
What would be fine points for me from hot and humid country and what went wrong with the butter leaking?
Siti says
I’m Siti,
from Malaysia too. Usually, making croissant during rainy day. It would work. You should try too.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi HY,
Yes, that is quite a challenge. The thing we can offer is to tell you to use your fridge as much as possible and make sure everything you use, including your tools, is cool too. Put your rolling pin in the fridge for instance. Work quickly and back to the fridge as soon as possible.
Steve says
Made my third attempt today – not bad! To proof the croissants, I took my large cast iron enameled pot filled with boiling water and put it in the lower rack of my cool over. I then placed the croissants on the send to top rack in the oven, closed the door and left for 2 hours. The proofing was a bit slow, so I removed the pot, brought it to a boil and put it back in the oven and let it go for another half hour.
I live in the US and we have terrible butter. I have worked in the dairy industry for 17 years and can safely say that. The sweet cream unsalted butter in my market is only 80% butterfat which is standard in the US. My croissants are flaky and have some honey combs, but the pockets are smaller. Do you think this is the effect of higher moisture content in the butter?
Last bit of a tip. The first go around, I made the butter square as in the picture – placing pieces together to make a square. When I started the laminating process, the butter square separated. So the next time, I over lapped the pieces of butter, wrapped them in wax paper and smashed them together with the rolling pin. Folded the butter over, on to itself, and smashed again and again until there were no more seams in the butter. Threw it in the fridge along with the dough over night. Rolled out just fine! Hope this tip helps!
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks for the tips you added Steve. And we do think the difference in butter does matter. The smashing of the butter and making sure it becomes as one piece is quite essential for a good result, a solid square without any seams.
Hope you will get a chance to try the recipe with good dairy butter with higher fat content and tell us about the results compared with the 80% version.
Happy croissant baking!
Ed & Marieke
Aly says
I too live in the US and have had fine results with american butter. Now a days you can buy European style butter in the grocery store. I look for Plugra, Challenge European butter or if you can find it Lurpak imported from Denmark. My grocery store here in NC carries about 5 different European style butter. I have made croissants and real Danish dough many times and find the biggest secret is the temperature of the butter and the dough when you go to roll or laminate them together. The dough should not be overly cold or it will cause the butter to turn hard and the butter should be softened like pliable wax but not soft so it spreads easily with a knife. The other secret is letting the dough rest for only 30-45 min. between rolls or the butter gets too hard and splilts wehn the dough is rolled out and folded. Hope this helps.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Aly for this very helpful addition. Love the term pliable wax, it describes the consistency the butter should have in very well!
Alek Zelaya says
I tried this recipe today and since I had already made croissants before and the weather was really cold I decided to make them in a single day. It took me 9 hours and the final product was perfect! Thank you for the recipe.
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks Alek and glad to hear the result was so great even within one day.
Happy croissant baking!
Vanessa says
I decided to make these. It was my first attempt at croissants. They were absolutely perfect and delicious. I’m so glad I found this recipe. It will definitely be used again and again. Thank you for sharing.
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks Vanessa! And maybe you would also like to try some other bakes with the croissant dough in the future like these lovely pastries we can really recommend : www.weekendbakery.com/posts…x-raisins/
Happy baking weekend!
Nabila selim says
I liked so much
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Nabila
Marina Greco says
Ciao io sono Marina e vi seguo dall’Italia.
Complimenti per il sito è FANTASTICOOOOOO….
Non sono al mio primo tentativo con i croissant, e la vostra ricetta e il video sono proprio quello che cercavo.
Però ho delle domande per voi
Io sono vegana e vorrei utilizzare del burro vegetale, come lo devo trattare prima di chiuderlo nell’impasto?
La farina che indicate nella ricetta T55 è uguale alla nostra farina 0?
Il lievito istantaneo è uguale al nostro lievito secco?
Grazie per tutte le informazioni che ci regalate e per tutte le ricette e ancora complimenti per il sito.
A presto
Marina
Weekend Bakers says
Chiao Marina,
We do not have experience with using burro vegetale but a lot of bakers do and you can use it the same way as you would dairy butter. And yes the Italian flour typo 0 is close to the French type 55, the protein content should be around 11%.
And the instant yeast and dry yeast you want to use we believe are the same.
Thank you / grazie! for your kind words and happy baking!
Ed & Marieke
Christine Bussian says
Hi there!
Thank you for this recipe:) As a croissant lover it was time to try to make them myself.
The first two steps felt fine. The third step was messed up since I was to slow rolling out the dough. Nevertheless I got some very well formed croissants out of it. The proofing went pretty bad. After a few minutes my croissants were floating in butter:( they lost their size and became flat. After baking them they looked cute from above, flat from the side and The inside was sticky.
I know I will just have to do it over and over again to learn and find Out what works best in my Environment but the butter leaking concerns me!
Hope to get some help:) Thanks in Advance! Christine
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Christine,
Yes, you just need some more practice and you need to make sure the temperature when proofing is correct. Like we say in the recipe: Proof the croissants draft-free at an ideal temperature of 24ºC to 26.5ºC (above that temperature there is a big chance butter will leak out!).
Good luck with your next bakes and see some more tips below from other bakers and in our croissant log: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…aking-log/
Marina says
Hi,
Your website is amazing!
Anyway, how do you proof your croissants? The lowest temperature my oven can go is 100 degrees fahrenheit and
the room temperature in the house is too cold. What can I do?
Thanks,
Marina
Greg says
Hi,
I’ve dealt with the same problem that you have. I have tried a few things that have been successful for me.
The first was to put a thermal mass in my oven, such as a heavy cast iron skillet or a ceramic baking stone. I turned on the oven for about 45 seconds until it was flooded with warm but not hot air (I have a gas range so this may vary), then turned the oven off. I let the oven sit closed until the interior could absorb some of the heat. Then I registered the temperature on my digital thermometer and checked to see whether the temp was about 26° C. If too hot, I left it open a few minutes until the air inside cooled to that range. Then I placed my croissants inside and closed the door. The temperature doesn’t stay there forever but it was sufficient for my croissants to start rising nicely without butter melting out.
The other thing that worked for me was to pour hot water into a metal pan inside my oven and close the door with the croissants inside. Again, I regularly checked the air temperature with a thermometer to check that it wasn’t too warm.
If you don’t have a thermometer, I recall that 26° F feels just faintly warm. It is not an extreme temperature.
Good Luck,
Greg
Weekend Bakers says
We can only say follow the excellent tips Greg has for you. We also use our smaller stone oven as a proofing cabinet by warming it slightly then turning it off and putting the croissants in. We also measure the temp because it is very important to get the temperature right when dealing with such delicate buttery dough.
Diana says
Hi
I have made two beautiful batches of croissants, except I skipped the twice eggwash, I only eggwash just before popping in the oven. I am from Australia so we have limited flour range, the inside of my croissants didnt have the exact same honeycomb appearance and I noticed that the croissants in Australia dont look like in the centre. Anyway, you mentioned using t55 flour and I want to enhance my croissants and I managed to find a website that imports flour from France. The website suggested that t45 flour is suited for croissants and pastry whereas t55 for baguettes and french bread. Should i get t45 or 55?
nuti says
hello…I need the ingredients using cups not gram
Weekend Bakers says
For best results we very much recommend weighing the ingredients!
Please find cup indications below:
For the dough
1 lb. 2 oz. (4 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
5 oz. (1/2cup plus 2 Tbs.) cold water
5 oz. (1/2 cup plus 2 Tbs.) cold whole milk
2 oz. (1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs.) granulated sugar
1-1/2 oz. (3 Tbs.) soft unsalted butter
1 Tbs. plus scant 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
2-1/4 tsp. table salt
For the butter layer
10 oz. (1-1/4 cups) cold unsalted butter
dido says
Why you use too much salt 12g per 500g flour this is 2,4%? For me this is too much, for breads i use 2% but this is pastry.I tried recipe similar to that with 12g salt per 500g flour(2.4%) but croissants was too salty for my taste.I know that salt slows the yeast activity but, what is reason to use high salt perecentage ?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Dido,
With bread we agree with you. We even use only 1.5% in most of our daily bread. See our posting on the subject: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…h-and-why/
With this croissant recipe we use more because of the overwhelming amount of butter that is worked into the dough. With this amount the butter can be ‘counted as flour’. So the overall result is not too salty for us. But of course you can easily adapt the recipe and use the amount that is perfect for you. In this case we think the buttery-ness in combination with the salt coming through just that little bit stronger works really well.
Happy baking
Sean says
Thanks for the response. Another quick Question. The first proof where the dough rises > 2X: Can I do this in a 70F environment or should I leave the dough in the fridge to rise > 2X? What is the difference between the two methods in terms for temperature for the initial rise?
Weekend Bakers says
The amount of yeast is too much for rising at room temperature. However you need this amount of yeast in the dough for the final proofing. To overcome this problem we let the dough develop in the first proof in the fridge. The fridge will slow the yeast down so the dough will not overproof and has time to develop a nice full flavor.
Sean says
Thanks for the excellent content and your patient replies. I made Pain Au Chocolat which came our O.K for the most part. The issues were
1) Dough was hard to roll out – I mixed the ingredients by rubber spatula in a bowl and transferred to granite top after the shaggy mass. Then did the usual push with heel; rotate and roll steps for 5 min. What consistency am I looking for at the end of this process before I proof for the first time?
2) Not super flaky and very moderate honeycomb structure – I did 3 folds each time trimming the sides to ensure no “dead”dough was in the laminate. before each turn, the trimming enabled me to see the butter layer which was my way of avoiding butter less voids. Again during each turn, dough was a bit hard to roll out. I did refrigerate 3 – 4 Hrs in plastic wrap between turns and no butter oozing. During the final rise, the croissant was jiggly and puffed up fairly decent. I did notice bubbles on some after the final proof before it went in the oven. Some of them has their jaw opened after the final baking, maybe I did not seal them properly. What should be the thickness of the dough for the final shaping? I am sure mine was very thick
Like to get your thoughts on the 2 issues stated above
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Sean, some quick answers;
1) We knead until it resembles a dough. It is not very smooth but it has some structure. This normally takes about 2 to 3 minutes with a machine. We have found some flour brands to simply do not make good croissants, whatever you try. Change to another brand, or mix bread flour with pastry flour.
2) When you roll your dough to the right dimensions, you automatically get the right thickness which is about 4mm. About the ‘hard to roll’ it simply depends on resting and finding the right flour.
Croissants are a hard thing to master, you need at least 5 to 6 tries to get it right.
SharonRR says
Hi Weekend Bakery,
I though it might be useful for your readers to add my experience of your immaculate step by step croissant recipe.
I have made the croissants a few times. In the UK, ‘President’ (French) butter has a high fat content and when used with type 45 flour or 55 produces authentic croissants. www.shipton-mill.com also in the UK, have a superb range of organic and stoneground flours including rare flours, low gluten flours, gluten free and many, many other wonderful flours.
Regarding the croissants being doughy inside once baked. I discovered that the cooking temperature resolved this. I bake my croissants from frozen and put them in a 210 C /220 C oven for 10 minutes. I then turn the oven down to 160 C for 25 minutes. It took me a few trials to get it right, but its definitely worth it. To add, I don’t glaze my croissants and they bake beautifully.
To mention as well, the first time, I wrapped my dough in cling film and was convinced that some condensation was the cause of my croissants being a little doughy inside. However, my experiments with the oven temperature, with each batch, has resolved the doughiness and my croissants are well risen and ‘honeycombed’ inside. I now wrap my dough in greaseproof paper in the fridge to completely eliminate any possibility of condensation.
A final word on dough proving in the fridge. Temperature is critical to working with yeast, so when ‘retarding’ the dough, check your fridge is the correct temperature and use a fridge thermometer. There are excellent tips in WB’s recipe on ‘keeping cool’ with lots of other tips, which must also be adhered to for perfect results. It’s the only way. If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.
Thank you again WB for a great recipe and superb step by step guide.
Weekend Bakers says
Sharon, thank you for the additions, this will be very helpful to our UK visitors.
Ajeng says
Hi,
I read some comments about putting the shaped dough in the freezer for baking later, as I did the this too but the result won’t be as good as if I oven right away (some of the honeycombs are missing). I thought maybe because when I defroze them there will be water coming out and ruin them. Any advice on this? Should I just put it in the chiller instead freezer?.
Also I live in Indonesia where it’s hot and humid all the time, and sometimes I feel like the dough is over fermented (smells different and all) because of the heat, do you think this problem will go if I reduce the amount of the yeast? (I really dont want to play with the recipe as I got good croissant out of it) Or the over fermented happened because of other thing?
Thanks,
Ajeng
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Ajeng,
reading about your climate challenges we would definitely advise to experiment with using less yeast. We do not know what the optimum for you would be put try taking small steps toward less and see how that works out for you.
Good luck with it!
John says
I told before crossiant rises coz of two reasons. One is yeast, proofing the base dough and second is the lamination. I have try this recipe and came out badly. After baking, it is still raw inside. I thought of my lamination. The overall is heavy, not flaky at all, doughy. Could that be the problem? Could cutting those triangles badly affect the baking? ( i use a knife instead of a pizza cutter.) And for the base dough, how come yours look soft and smooth? All liquid goes in for mixing or little by little?
John says
I use pastry margarine instead of butter, can?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi John,
You can either use butter or margarine. Bakers use both, margarine usually because it is cheaper. We prefer butter because of its taste but you should be able to get good results with both.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello John,
Croissants are the prima donnas of the baking world. Each step is important and should be taken with care and precision for the result to be even good.
Next t that, from your story we would almost conclude that your yeast is not working properly. Make sure it is still good enough to use and also make sure you use the right type of flour.
The base dough is not that smooth to begin with, however after one laminating step the dough becomes smooth.
All liquid is added in one go.
Good luck with it.
Samer says
Hi
Thanks for the recipe
I have a question for the first dough do we refrigerate over night in normal fridge or in the freezer, and if in the fridge at what temp as the yeast won’t stop working and the dough will be proofing in the fridge
Thanks
Kim says
Do you had a brand of European butter that you prefer for this recipe? I have used plugra, Kerry gold, and land o lakes European butter. I seem to have better luck with Kerry gold.
Nicole rozon says
Hello,
How do I convert the instant yeast to active dry yeast, this is the only yeast I have available.
Please note I have hungry people depending on me or us!
Merry Christmas and thanks
Nicole
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Nicole,
You can always covert from fresh yeast to active dry yeast by multiplying the fresh yeast amount by 0.4.
In this case, for this recipe we would recommend you use 13 grams of active dry yeast.
Hope it turns out great. Happy croissant baking and Happy New Year!
Marieke & Ed
John says
Hello Ed and Marieke,
I just want to say thank you very much to both of you for sharing this recipe from Jeffrey Hamelman with detailed photos, video, and explanations. I tried a few croissant recipes before and your dough was the easiest to handle and most forgiving (slight mistakes still turned out nice honeycombs) of them all. I think your tips were spot on: working in cool environment, cool dough in about 30 minutes only in fridge and not in the freezer, rolling from center outwards, and dusting the underside of the dough by lifting it over, among others. I would like to add to this that one should make sure his/her nails are trimmed because there’s a chance that the rolled dough may get scratched. That happened to me a few times :-).
Thanks also for your wonderful website. This is such a great resource.
I wish you both the best!
Regards,
John
Brent Stewart says
Hello.
I made this recipe for breakfast yesterday(Christmas day). What a hit. So wonderful and flavorful. As I was doing the turns on the dough. The dough had such a wonderful fresh aroma.
I have noticed that as I try recipes from books and websites. So many do not work as written. I have to adjust something. But this croissant was spot on.
Thank you very much for your time and effort
Sincerely and a belated Merry Chistmas to all
Brent
Sarah says
For the first day, after you made the dough, is it okay if you leave it in the fridge more than overnight?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Sarah,
Yes, you can maybe stretch it to an extra 12 hours, but we would not recommend more than that!
melissa says
Will this recipe double nicely? Thanks.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Melissa,
Doubling the dough is not a problem, then make two batches to fold in the butter. With one double batch you have to work out the new dimensions / all the lengths and widths as they do not work simply by doubling them too. Just a thought: quadrupling the dough would mean doubling all dimensions, which is easier to calculate.
Pavan Rajput says
nice recipy
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Pavan, hope you give it a try too.
Susana says
reading the comments and questions below encourages me to add the following:
I did use organic flour (000 – triple zero, here in Uruguay) and won’t test any alternative as they came out perfectly.
Also, I froze a few of the shaped crossants, put them in the freezer on a baking sheet, lined with wax paper and moved them to a bag once frozen. I took them out of the freezer for a few minutes, while the oven preheated and baked them last Saturday for my son’s “treat of the weekend” and they were even BETTER! TASTIER!!
Weekend Bakers says
And thank you for adding your experience with freezing the shaped croissants. Lots of people are asking about this so it is very valuable to get feedback from bakers on this topic! Fantastic to read it works so well for you.
Happy croissant freezing & baking!
Ed & Marieke
Susana says
Even though I felt if was a rather cumbersome way to go about it… I did do it… and MYOHMY!! what a wonderful surprise! It was worth every minute of work, the patience to stagger the process and the meticulous measurements. Best croissant recipe EVER!
Thanks
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Susana, wonderful!
Susana says
I tried freezing the ready-to-bake croissants with great results. The first time, I took them out of the freezer and let them stand at room temperature for about an hour. The second time (and third, and fourth!) I just put them straight in the oven. Both techniques worked, but it is best to simply put them on parchment paper straight out of the freezer. I better stop before this becomes an addiction!
Thanks for your detailed instructions… I am now going sytematically through your recipies and begin to have a fame-of-sorts among friends and family for the wonderful succession of marvelous breads!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Susana,
Thank you for the great feedback, that is so good to know for us and many other bakers!
eric garces says
good day
thanks for sharing. i have a question guys. if fridge you mean is it in the chiller or freezer? and after shaping can i put it back the croissant inside the freezer for stock? thank you. i have a problem with my recipes i keep doing this for more than 2 years and lately the outside is perfect layers but i keep getting now doughy in the inside.
thank again for sharing
eric
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Eric,
With fridge we mean the chiller. And yes, you can put the croissants in the freezer after shaping and bake them at a later stage. We personally do not do this, we bake them and freeze them and defrost / pick them up for 8 minutes in the oven and they are almost as good as freshly baked.
Sounds like your problem either has to do with the not yet perfect proofing or the baking. Color outside does not always tell you something is done on the inside for example. Hard to judge for us but try to play around with baking temps and times a bit too.
Good luck with it and happy baking!
Jianwei Liang says
VERY HIGH PROFESSIONAL LEVEL
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you very much Jianwei!
Kim says
Hi, thank you for the recipe and tips! I am getting beautiful croissants, flaky and nice layers, but he bottoms are burning even with a silpat. I tried turning the oven down 25 degrees F but they are still burning. While I watch them bake, I do notice some butter melting and pooling around the bottoms. I am thinking it is the butter that is burning. Any tips on what I am doing wrong? Maybe chilling them for 20 min after proofing may help????
Steve says
Are you using a convection oven? If not, you may want to try a double (insulated) sheet pan. Don’t chill them after they proof, this will not work. Also, if you see butter pooling under the croissant while it is baking, then you should check your recipe. The roll-in butter for a croissant dough with 3 sets of letter folds (27 layers) should weigh no more than 25-30 percent of the base dough weight. If you use more butter than this you must have more folds or the butter layers will be too thick and melt out as the piece is baked rather than being absorbed by the dough. Perhaps you could substitute a book fold for one of the letter folds (make this the second fold) this would give you 36 layers. We (Lorraine Bakery) use a 30% weight for the butter and we are using 2 letter folds and one book fold. It also helps a lot to have good quality (83% butterfat) butter. Hope this helps. Steve
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Steve for this excellent idea. And Kim, we think your oven could be the challenge more so than the butter, so the double sheet pan is great advice to try.
Marieke
Kim says
Thank you both! I do use convection. And I do use a high quality European butter. I will add a book fold into my folding. I was doing three letter folds. I think I need to play around with my oven temps but will try insulated baking sheets as well. Thank you for the advice!
Steve says
Before you change the amount of folds, you should calculate the percentage of roll-in butter. Again, this should be around 25-30 percent. If this ratio is OK then you will have to look elsewhere. Perhaps the dough is not being rolled out evenly (easy to do without a sheeter) and you may have thick and thin spots of butter. This would also explain the pooling butter. Before you change something, make sure you have a valid reason to do so. Steve
Mercy says
Fantastic explanation!
I’d like to share with you one video that I posted last week. Maybe this can bring you new ideas!
www.hospitality-australia.con/how-t…croissant/
javed Alam says
I like the criossaint
Weekend Bakers says
So much to like about the croissant. That’s why it is a classic of course!
Chris says
Thank you for the detailed instruction including the video to help and nail down the technique required to get these right. I read through the whole thing four times or so, and I’m glad I did, because each time I realized there was something crucial I had not properly understood the previous time. The croissants came out perfect and were every bit as good as what I have bought from good bakeries.
I may not be the greatest baker, but like many I’ve spent years trying to work out the fine mechanics of what makes great bread. To any who care, here is my own unsolicited advice: Improvement is probably more about technique and patience than anything else. While ingredients do matter, for the vast majority of breads the ingredients are essentially the same–flour, water, yeast, and salt mixed to an appropriate hydration for the bread you want to make. If a person is scouring books or the internet looking for some secret little-known ingredient that will take their bread to the next level, that person is wasting their time in what is doomed to be a fruitless search. Sure, an understanding of gluten (protein) content or an appreciation for how a tiny bit of malt reacts to the starch in flour could lead to some tiny tweaks in the final product, but if you are not already making really great bread then no fringe ingredient is going to take you there. Great bread is not about controlling the micro processes and finding a way to make them happen in your way or on your own time frame, but understanding that those processes cannot be controlled, learning how they work, and creating the environment necessary and allowing the required time to let those processes happen on their own.
The great obstacle to learning to make great bread is not that the information is scarce or hidden, but that there is so much misinformation and complete rubbish on the internet to sift through, all by people who are certain they are right, that you almost have to be lucky to focus your attention into the right sources. My experience using this website, for whatever it is worth, is that this is one of the places where you can find useful instruction on the processes required to make great bread.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Chris,
Thank you so much for your very insightful addition and very kind words! We very much agree with what you proclaim. The only thing we would like to add is that, in our experience, the quality of ingredients and especially the flour can make a difference in baking results and pleasure. We do these experiments now and then (see: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…nt-part-1/) and when we did these first tests we could not believe that there would be such big differences in baking results, changing only the flour (quality). So bread is all about the flour,water yeast and salt but we can highly recommend using the best quality (stone ground organic) flour for best taste and texture. Hope you agree.
Wishing you lots of wonderful loaves,
Ed & Marieke
Martina says
Hello
I baked them today 😉 . The dough worked very well for me. I think next time I will use less salt because the taste is more salty then neutral at least for me.
Can you advice how to make sure that the croissants after baking will not became flat. Some of them stay in nice shape but some of them became flat.
Thank you for really good recipe
Chris says
Maybe the owners of the website have better advice, but seeing as nobody has replied yet, and I’ve had this problem with breads before, maybe I can help. If the croissants rose nicely in the first place, but then some came out a bit flat, it is likely they rose too long. Bread can fall flat if it rises too long before being put into the oven, or even after being put into the oven as the introduction to the oven heat will puff up the bread even more. Like with a balloon, there is only so much air that a croissant can hold before it will fail and then partially deflate. There is no exact time for bread to rise as environmental conditions will change the pace at which the process happens. If the dough starts looking wobbly, it has risen too long. You want to put your dough in the oven while it still has enough elasticity left to take the “oven spring” that the dough will experience without, for lack of a better word, popping.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Chris for adding this great advice, nothing to add to this except with experience and practice you will recognize exactly when the dough is perfect for the oven.
Angela C Raymonde-Cutler says
What a fabulous website! Do you have a news letter?
Thank you
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Angela,
We only have a newsletter for our webshop (see bottom of this page on the left to enter your email address: www.weekendbakery.com/webshop/en/ but it always also contains useful information and tips on baking.
Thank you and happy baking!
Ed & Marieke
zawlatthan says
thank you very much