How To Make Proper Croissants Completely By Hand

Ever had your home smell like European butter and fresh-baked croissants?Do you want it to?(‘Vivre’ by Saib)Croissants made from scratch.There’s no quick way to a really good croissant.I hate to break it to you.But there just isn’t.These take time. Two to three days to be exact.The majority of that time is almost completely inactive andobviously you can go do whatever you need to do that day while you’re waiting for it. No big deal.It’s really only maybe one hour of actual, like, active workacross all those days and that’s – that’s not that bad.If you want fresh-baked croissantsthis is what you gotta do.I’ll stop talking, let’s let’s make this thing, yeah?Now, getting started, we need to bloom our yeast first. Before anybody asks, I don’t plan on doing a sourdough version of this,I don’t like the way sourness plays with croissants.Now you’re gonna start by whisking in 6 grams of active dry yeast into 130 grams of waterthat’s around 100 degrees fahrenheit.Now I’m pretty much only gonna use grams for this recipe just because croissants need to be accurate in order to get accurate results.So, I recommend getting a kitchen scalethey’re really not that expensive, and I’ll leave a link below to the kitchen scale that I personally use.Now once all that’s mixed together you’re just gonna let that sit for about10 minutes or until it starts to get a little foamy on top. To a medium sized mixing bowl, you’re gonna add250 grams of bread flour, 30 grams of granulated sugar, and 5 grams of fine sea salt.Then just give that a nice thorough whisk until everything is evenly incorporated.Then add in your bloomed yeast mixture, 1 egg yolk, and 25 grams of unsalted buttergently melted. Then just mix those ingredients together with your spatula until it begins to form a dough and then use your hands whenever necessary,and lightly knead the dough until it starts to come together. Don’t worry,you’re not gonna have to knead this for 10 minutes.Now once it’s come together, to give the dough a little bit of strength you’rebasically just gonna pick it up and sort of, like, slap it against the table and then fold it over itself like you see here.You pick it up like…(laughs)It looks a little weird.This part should only take about 30 seconds to a minute to do.You’ll know that it’s done whenever you start to see a smooth surface on the dough.Once you’re done with that gently shape it intoa ball and place it back in your medium-sized bowl.Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 10 minutes.Now once it’s rested you’re ready for something called: “it’s first turn.”In order to do that, you’re gonna grab an edge of the dough and you’re going to gentlypull on it and stretch it and then fold it over itself and gently pat it down with the palm of your hand.And you’re gonna repeat that process all the way around the perimeter of the dough,until you’ve stretched all the sides and it’s basically like an elastic ball.Then you’re gonna flip it over and place it seem side down in the bowl,plastic wrap it and rest it in the fridge for 10 more minutes.Once it’s rested you’re gonna repeat that processone more time for a total of two turns,being careful not to tear the dough when you’re stretching it.You want to make sure that the dough stays nice and intact.Once you’ve done that you’re gonna plastic wrap it one last time and let it rest in the fridge for 25 minutes.Now once this rested place the finished dough on a sheet of wax paper.Now you’re gonna need to roll this into a 7 inch by 7 inch square.So in order to do that, A: you’re gonna need a ruler,and B: you’re gonna need a rolling pin. Start the general shape of itbut don’t roll it all the way to the 7 inch shape. Now once you’ve gotten in into a sort of like a roughsort of oval-ish shape, take your wax paper and fold it so that the edges of the actual wax paper itself,not the dough, but the edges of the wax paper are 7 inches by 7 inches.Then all you have to do is flip your dough over and then sort of gently roll your dough into those edges andit’ll actually shape the dough for you.So essentially the dough is conforming to the shape of the wax paper.Now, two things about this:The first thing is make sure that your dough is evenly rolled out so it’s completely flat.You don’t want it to look like mountainous terrain, like high in one area and low in one area. Make sure it’s completely even.And then the other thing is don’t press too hard,otherwise it’ll burst out of the wax paper.In which case if it does just carefully unwrap it, leaving the shape intact and rewrap it. No big deal.Once you have your square that’s as even as you can make it place it in the fridge overnight for 12 hours.I’ll have a sample timing schedule below in the description, if you need it.Now on day two it’s time to laminate our dough.So with butter you can imagine that this is one of the most important ingredients in the entire recipe.So don’t skimp out on what kind of butter you get. Don’t get some cheapo butter.Dish out some extra cash and get some good European butter.The reason why is because you want butter that has a higher butter fat percentage.Higher butter fat percentage means better layers rather than something with a lower butter fat percentage because it has less water in it.Which makes it a little bit more firm and more pliable to withstand all those folds and thin layers.Anyway, so you’re gonna measure out a 138 grams of European style butter.Make sure that you cut the pieces of this butter as evenly as possible, you’ll see why later.Now using another sheet of wax paper, you’re gonna carefully lay out your evenly sliced pieces of butteruntil they’re roughly 4 inches by 4 inches, I would leave a little bit of space,maybe at least — maybe make it about a 1/2 inch smaller or even an inch smaller on all the edges,because you’re gonna pound it out just like we did with the dough.Now we’re ready to start pounding it out into a little square.If you have little odd bits, by the way, you can see that I put that one right on top. It’s no big deal.So, we’re gonna fold this just like we did with the dough,making sure that the edges of the wax paper itself are 4 inches by 4 inches,it’s okay if the butter is not because we’re gonna pound it out and have itconform to the shape of the wax paper.Once the wax paper has been folded into a 4 inch by 4 inch square, flip it overso the seam side is down, and using a rolling pin,lightly pound out the butter so that it spreads out to the edges and roll it out to smooth it until you get aeven 4 inch by 4 inch square block of butter, known as a barrage.Then place it in the fridge to chill for 15 to 25 minutes.Once that’s done, lightly flour work surface and pull your pre-shaped dough out of the fridge.Now, this part is very important, so take caution when doing it.With your rolling pin sort of, like, flatten out and elongate all of the edges of your dough.Lightly flatten out the middle so that there’s not too much of a bump there,and then place your butter in the center of your dough diagonally,so that the edges are facing the opposite of the edges of the dough.And then you’re going to take each edge of the dough and stretch and fold it overthe butter sort of encasing the butter in a dough envelope and it should be pretty muchrelatively square once you’ve done that. Make sure that it is totally encased and no butter is poking out whatsoever.Pinch and close the edges shut and just let it sit for a minute or two.You wanna make sure that the butter isn’t completely rock-hard when you roll it, otherwiseit’ll just kind of break up a little bit. Then lightly flour a rolling pin in the top of your dough, and before you startrolling, you’re gonna take your rolling pin and you’re gonna lightly press down on segments of the dough.I sort of pre-rolled there for a second – not supposed to do that.And then you’re gonna press downmultiple times along the entire length of the dough.This is sort of helping encase the butter and just kind of getting the butter pressed towards the edges of the doughbefore you actually do the rolling. All right, and now we’re gonna begin the rolling process.So, you’re gonna roll with even pressure and roll this dough into a long rectangle, that’s roughly 18 inches in length.Try and keep it in as much of a rectangular shape as you can and also try not to rock back and forth and back and forth with your rolling pin.You’ll notice that I’m specifically going only in one direction ineach roll when I’m rolling this dough. And make sure that you’re keeping even pressure the entire way, if you do itunevenly, the butter will be unevenly distributed,so it’s really important that you’re careful here when you’re rolling. Now, once that’s done and it’s reached roughly 18 inches in length,you’re gonna grab the bottom of the dough, the part that’s closest to you, and fold itthree-quarters of the way up the rectangle and then take the top half and fold it the rest of the quarter of the way until both ends meet evenly.Lightly pat those down so that they stick and then fold the longer bit over the shorter bit making an envelope shape.Using a rolling pin very lightly tap that down so that all the layers are stuck together. Do not press it,just lightly tap it and then wrap it in plastic wrap and rest it in the fridge for one hour.Once that hour is up, we’re ready for our second and final fold,so unwrap your dough, place it on a lightly floured work surface,and this time when we’re rolling it make sure that you’re rolling it the long direction ofthe dough. Now, we already rolled it one direction the other wayso we’re not gonna roll it the same direction and make it into like a wider rectangle.You’re gonna keep this into sort of like a long skinny rectangle.So same as before,give it a little bit of a tap along the entire surface of the dough, and then roll it the same exact way you didlast time with even pressurekeeping it an even long rectangle shape that is about 18 inches in length. Now this time we’re gonna fold it letter styleYou’re gonna grab top part and fold it a third of the way down, and then the bottom part folding it so that it overlapsevenly on the other side. Then you’re sort of ending up with almost a perfect square.I had to make a little bit of an adjustment here.But make sure that it’s even so that it’s an even square and there’s no weird overlapping or under… lapping,I don’t know if it’s a word.Now this is the part, we’re gonna decide whether it’s gonna be a two or three day process.You’re gonna wrap it up in plastic wrap as usual and place it in the fridge for 12 hours,or up to 12 hours, or just 1 hour. It’s up to you.I personally choose to do it in three days cuz it just makes a little bit better for a final product,but if you are strapped for time, you can totally just let it rest for an hour in the fridge.There’s two reasons why we’re letting this rest.A: it’s because we don’t want the butter to melt and we want to make sure to keep the butter cold,and B: we want the gluten to have time to relax, because if the gluten is tough then whenever you try to roll itit’s gonna resist you rolling, and you’re just gonna press all those beautiful butter layersinto the dough, and you do not want that,so make sure that if the dough resists you at any time while rolling this, that you give it time to rest in the fridge.So make sure you rest it if it’s resisting you.Now, we’re ready for the final roll in shape of the croissants.So you’re gonna start by rolling this but this some when you roll it, you’re gonna roll it into a wider and thicker rectangle.So you’re gonna roll it until it’s about10 inches wide. Not long, but 10 inches wide, and a 1/4 of an inch thick.The length of it isn’t as important here, just roll it until those parameters are met.Now this is a good example for me to show you. You can see that the dough is not really rolling very far and itsort of, like, slides back to position after I roll it. This is an example of the dough resisting meSo I actually chose to rewrap it after rolling it out a little bitleaving it in the same shape, not folding in or anything, re-wrapping it in plastic wrap andplacing in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes before I continue to roll it because I didn’t want to ruin these beautiful croissants.Now here it’s rested for about 30 minutes and you can see that it rolls with total ease, no problem at all,and that’s how much of a difference that a little quick 30 minute rest does when the gluten gets a little too tight on you.Now you’re ready to shape the croissants.You can see me looking at my notes on my phone here because I always knew check my notes whenever I’m following my ownfreaking recipe, and you’re gonna make littlemarks along the bottom of the dough at 4 1/2 inch intervals. Then from there looking at the marks at the bottom you’rebasically going to mark the top as wellby following in between two marks on the bottom of the dough and then making a mark at that middle part on the top portion of the dough.You can see me identifying the middle here and then following it up to the top of the dough and making marks up there.Now to cut the croissant you’re gonna take a sharp long knife and you’re going to make cutsfollowing along those points that you made earlier, so you’re gonna basicallyconnect each point together with one cut.You can see me cutting it into triangles here and you should get about five to six croissants from this.I know that doesn’t seem like a lot for all this work,but if you want to double that you can very easily do two separate dough’s, I don’t recommenddoubling it and making one big dough because then it’s a counter space issue,because you have to roll it out into a larger size.So it’s actually easier to just do two separate dough’s, but in my opinion six croissants is enough,but I’m sure there are other people who will strongly disagree.Now, once you have all your croissants ready to go you’re going to take one triangle of dough and very gentlyelongate it. So just maybe an inch longer, if it resists you in any way do not pull anymore,you will ruin the croissant. And then you’re gonna very tightly roll them up.Don’t squeeze the layers,but just make sure that it’s tight and it makes as many roundabouts when rolling it up as possible. And then just lightlysqueeze that tip down so that it sticks and then you’re good to go. Then just repeat that process with every croissant keeping them allas even as possible, and place them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.Now one thing I really need to note here is the little tails on these croissants, those little bits,you need to make sure that you place those down just enough so that the croissant is holding them down.Otherwise when they bake they’re gonna unroll and unravel and it’s not gonna look very good. So make sure that you arefacing it down such as that so that the weight of the croissant keeps it underneath the croissant while it bakes.Now, let’s just take a second to admire the lamination of these croissants. I mean, come on. Look at these things.They are perfect.Now before proofing you’re gonna brush the tops of all of these croissants with egg wash,which is literally just one whole egg whisked together.And you’re gonna lightly brush the tops don’t overly lacquer them.Then you’re just gonna cover that rimmed baking sheet with another inverted rimmed baking sheet to sort of create an environmentthat doesn’t allow a draught in and allows them to expand more easily. Be aware that these are nearly gonna double in size.So, if you don’t have enough space for that to accommodate then do not do this.You can very easily just put it in your cold oven with the door closed andthat’ll keep the draft away so that they don’t form a skin. And you’re gonna proof these at 78 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 hours.Now, the way that I did this was I put it at the lowest rack in my oven with the light turned onand the door left slightly ajar. The way to tell if they’re proofed is that they should look puffy and almost doubled in size,the layers should start to be splitting a little bit, and they should jiggle a little bit back and forth if youlightly shake the pan. Now once they’re proofed enough, you’re gonna give them anothergentle brushing of egg wash, be very careful at this point, they’re very very fragile.For baking in a convection oven you’ll bake them at 390 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 minutes and then330 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 15 minutes or until they’re nice and golden brown.For a non convection oven, you’re gonna bake them at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until they’re golden brown and puffy.All right guys, and that is it. This recipe was a bitch and a half to get done for you guys,I’m so sorry was a little bit late on the upload.I’ve had some scheduling issues the past few weeks and it’s just beenslapping me in the face over and over. All in all I ended up with a bunch of croissants that I don’t really know whatto do with now. I mean I can eat them obviously, but how many croissants can one person eat?I hope you guys get the chance to make these. Don’t forget to DM me the photos of your croissants if you make them.The link for my Instagram is in the description as usual. With all that said if you enjoyed this video,or you learned something, leave a like, subscribe, and I will see you next week.