Croissants- We Knead to Bake#2

We Knead to bake, a group of bakers eagerly learning to bake bread every month, lead by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen. Last Month we made Pull-Apart Bread and for this month, aparna thought of giving some exercise to our Bingo Wings!!!! Yup, we made Croissants!!!!! 

• Combine all the ingredients for the dough
  in a bowl and knead for 5 minutes to make a dough.Lightly flour a 10-inch pie pan or a dinner plate.  And place the ball of dough on this.
• Gently shape the dough into a flat ball by
  pressing it down before storing it in the fridge, this makes rolling out next
  morning easier. Making a tight ball will strengthen the gluten which you do not
  need. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour and wrap well with plastic
  so it doesn’t dry out. Refrigerate overnight.

Day
2:

• The next day, cut out 2 pieces of parchment
  or waxed paper into 10” squares each. 
  Cut the cold butter into ½-inch-thick slabs. Place these pieces on one
  piece of parchment/ waxed paper so they form a 5- to 6-inch square. Cut the
  butter further into pieces as required to fit the square. Top with the other
  piece of parchment/ waxed paper.

• Using a rolling pin, pound the butter with
  light, even strokes. As the pieces begin to stick together, use more force.
  Pound the butter until it flattens out evenly into a square that’s approximately
  7-½”. Trim the edges of the butter to make a neat square. Put the trimmings
  on top of the square and pound them in lightly with the rolling pin.
  Refrigerate this while you roll out the dough.

Laminate
the dough

• Unwrap and lay the dough on a lightly
  floured work surface. Roll it out to a 10-½-inch square, and brush off the
  excess flour. Take the butter out from the refrigerator —it should be cold but
  pliable.  If it isn’t refrigerate it till
  it is. This so that when you roll out the dough with the butter in it, neither
  should it be soft enough to melt, or hard enough to break. Unwrap the butter and
  place it on the square of dough in the centre, so that it forms a “diamond”
  shape on the dough.
• Fold one flap of dough over the butter
  toward you, stretching it slightly so that the point just reaches the middle of
  the butter square. Bring the opposite flap to the middle, slightly overlapping
  the previous one. Similarly repeat with the other two so that the dough forms
  an envelope around the butter. Lightly press the edges together to completely
  seal the butter inside the dough to ensure the butter doesn’t escape when you
  roll out the dough later.
• Lightly flour the top and bottom of the
  dough. With the rolling pin, firmly press along the dough uniformly to elongate
  it slightly. Now begin rolling instead of pressing, focusing on lengthening
  rather than widening the dough and keeping the edges straight.

• Roll the dough into an 8” by 24” rectangle.
  If the ends lose their square shape, gently reshape the corners with your
  hands. Brush off the excess flour. Mark the dough lightly equally into three
  along the long side. Using this as a guideline, pick up one short end of the
  dough and fold ⅓rd of it back over the dough, so that ⅓rd
  of the other end of dough is exposed. Now fold the ⅓rd exposed
  dough over the folded side. Basically, the dough is folded like 3-fold letter
  before it goes into an envelope (letter fold). Put the folded dough on a floured
  baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze for 15 to 20 minutes to relax
  and chill the dough.

• Repeat the rolling and folding, this time
  rolling in the direction of the two open ends (from the shorter sides to
  lengthen the longer sides) until the dough is about 8” by 24”. Once again fold
  the dough in thirds, brushing off excess flour and turning under any rounded
  edges or short ends with exposed or smeared layers. Cover once again with
  plastic wrap and freeze for another 15 to 20 minutes.

• Roll and fold the dough exactly in the same
  way for the third time and put it baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap,
  tucking the plastic under all four sides and refrigerate overnight.

Day
3:

• The next day, unwrap and lightly flour the
  top and bottom of the dough. Cut the dough along the longer side into halves.
  Cover one half with plastic wrap and refrigerate it while working on the other
  half.
• “Wake up the dough up” by pressing firmly
  along its length with the rolling pin. Don’t widen the dough but simply begin
  to lengthen it with these first strokes. Slowly roll the dough into a long and
  narrow strip, approximately 8” by 22”. If the dough sticks as you roll,
  sprinkle with flour.
• Once the dough is about half to two-thirds
  of its final length, it may start to resist rolling and even shrink back. If
  this happens, fold the dough in thirds, cover, and refrigerate for about 10
  minutes; then unfold the dough and finish rolling.

• Lift the dough an inch or so off the table
  at its midpoint and allow it to shrink from both sides and prevent the dough
  from shrinking when it’s cut. Check that there’s enough excess dough on either
  end so that when you trim the edges to straighten them, you have a strip of dough
  that is 20’ inches long. Now trim the edges so they’re straight.

• If you’re good at “eyeballing” and cutting
  the dough into triangles, then forget the measuring rule, marking and cutting
  instructions.  Otherwise, lay a measuring
  rule or tape measure lengthwise along the top length of the dough. With a
  knife, mark the top of the dough at 5-inch intervals along the length (there
  will be 3 marks in all). Now place the rule or tape measure along the bottom
  length of the dough. Make a mark 2-½ inches in from the end of the dough.
  Make marks at 5-inch intervals from this point all along the bottom of the
  dough. You’ll have 4 marks that fall halfway between the marks at the top.
• Make diagonal cuts by positioning the
  yardstick at the top corner and the first bottom mark. Use a pizza wheel/ pie
  wheel or a bench scraper and cut the dough along this line which connects each
  top mark to the next bottom mark and then back to the next top mark and so on.
  This way you will have 7 triangles and a scrap of dough at each end.

 

Shape
the croissants

• Now work with one piece of triangular dough
  at a time. Using your rolling pin, very lightly roll (do not make it thin but
  only stretch it slightly) the triangle to stretch it a little, until it is
  about 10” long. This will give your croissants height and layers. You can
  stretch it by hand too, but if you don’t have the practise, your stretching
  could be uneven.
• Using a sharp small knife, make a ½- to
  ¾-inch-long notch in the centre of the short side of each triangle. The notch
  helps the rolled croissant curl into a crescent.
• Place the triangle on the work surface with
  the notched side closest to you. With one hand on each side of the notch, begin
  to roll the dough away from you, towards the pointed end.
• Flare your hands outward as you roll so
  that the notched “legs” become longer. Roll the triangle tight enough but not
  too tight to compress it, until you reach the “pointy” end which should be
  under the croissant.
• Now bend the two legs towards you to form a
  tight crescent shape and gently press the tips of the legs together (they’ll
  come apart while proofing but keep their crescent shape).
• Shape all the triangles like this into
  croissants and place them on a greased or parchment lined baking sheet leaving
  as much space between them as they will rise quite a bit.

 Proof
the croissants

• Brush the croissants with milk (or a mix of
  milk and cream). If you use eggs, make an egg wash by whisking one egg with 1
  tsp water in a small bowl until very smooth. Lightly brush this on each
  croissant.
• Refrigerate the remaining milk/ milk+cream
  (or egg wash) for brushing the croissants again later. Place the croissants in
  a cool and draft-free place (the butter should not melt) for proofing/ rising
  for about 1 ½ to 2 hours.  They might
  need longer than 2 hours to proof, maybe as much as 3 hours, so make sure to
  let croissants take the time to proof. The croissants will be distinctly larger
  but not doubled in size. They’re ready if you can see the layers of dough from
  the side, and if you lightly shake the sheets, the croissants will wiggle.

Bake
the croissants

• Just before the croissants are fully
  proofed, pre-heat your oven to 200C (400F) in a convection oven or 220C (425F)
  in a regular oven. Brush the croissants with milk/ milk+cream (or egg wash) a
  second time, and place your baking sheets on the top and lower thirds of your
  oven (if regular) or bake one tray at a time in the convection oven.
• Bake them for about 15 to 20 minutes till
  they’re done and golden brown on top and just beginning to brown at the sides.
  In a regular oven, remember to turn your baking sheets halfway through. If they
   seem to be darkening too quickly during
  baking, lower the oven temperature by 10C (25F). Cool the croissants on the
  baking sheets on racks.
• Serve warm. This recipe makes 15
  croissants.

Important tips to get your Croissants right (Read them twice/thrice)

• Ensure that your butter is cold – cold enough that it is pliable enough to smoothly roll out; not hard (or it will break) or soft (it will melt). If the butter is too hard and breaks while rolling out the dough, you will not get the layers in the croissants.
• Do not over-knead / develop the dough too much, too much gluten will not help during the lamination process. The lamination process itself is a kind of stretch and fold anyway and will strengthen the dough. So keep to the 3 minutes the recipe says.  You want a soft dough, not an elastic one.
• When you cover the butter square with the dough, make sure you seal the dough well, otherwise the butter will leak out when you roll out the dough, and there’s no way you can manage to put the butter back in. You will also end up with butter leaking during the baking.
• Always, always make sure your dough and butter inside it are cold. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Once the butter has melted, it is difficult to get the dough to produce layers because the dough tends to absorb the butter and will make greasy croissants. So, while working with the dough, or when rolling it out, if at any point you feel the dough becoming warm and soft, put it back in the fridge immediately. Also work as quickly as you can so the butter stays cold.
• During the lamination of the dough (rolling and folding repeatedly), chill the dough in the freezer and NOT the fridge. The overnight refrigeration is to be done in the fridge NOT in the freezer. Resting the dough is an important part of the croissant making process.
• Plan ahead and make sure you do all this when you have the time for it. You will need more time than you think you, believe me. You cannot leave this and attend to something else, unless you want to set yourself for failure!
• You also need a lot of patience to keep rolling out the dough with just enough pressure to stretch it. The rolled out dough before shaping should be somewhere between ¼” and ⅛” thick.
• Make sure your dough is shaped with straight lines and square-ish corners. All the time you are rolling your dough out, keep this in mind. This way you will minimise waste of dough. More importantly, the edges where there is no butter would get folded in during lamination and affect your layers. So trim off those bits if you have any of them.
• Keep lightly flouring your work surface (not too much), just enough to keep working smoothly without tearing the dough. However, dust with a light hand or you could end up adding more flour than desirable.
• Do not be tempted to fold more than three times. A fourth fold will give you more layers, but thinner butter layers between them, and your croissants will not puff of as much as you would like them to.