Croissant Dough

The instructions are excellent and the photographs provide a helpful visual of the process, and if all goes well, you’re rewarded with buttery pastries with crisp outer layers and light, tender interiors.

This recipe starts with a poolish preferment; it takes just a few minutes to put together but must rest for 12-15 hours – perfect timing for making it the night before and continuing with the dough the next morning.

The dough (détrempe) also comes together easily and uses the authors’ low and slow kneading technique ie kneading at the machine’s lowest power setting for a long period of time.

After the dough has fermented and chilled, the lamination process begins. I used a European-style butter with a higher fat content as recommended which seemed to be more malleable and less prone to cracking than my usual lower fat brand. Envelope folds and 3 turns are required before the dough is rolled and chilled for the last time before shaping. With only 20 minute rests in the freezer and just a few minutes needed to roll the dough each time, this can be done in less than 2 hours. However, if you need to stretch it out as I did when I had to step out unexpectedly, leaving it in the fridge for an hour instead of the freezer works well and you can pick up where you left off. My kitchen was very cool so I had ideal conditions for rolling the dough….everything remained cold so there was no sticking or risk of butter melting and the authors’ “fluffing” technique helped relax the gluten making it easier to roll.

Though the instructions expect you to continue with the shaping, proofing and baking on the same day, I didn’t want to be baking at midnight so I refrigerated the dough overnight after the 3rd turn and continued the next morning, making a half batch each of croissants and pains au chocolate.