I made them on Saturday night and the recipe said I could put them in the fridge to prove overnight. When I took them out in the morning not only had they not risen, they'd dried out on top. So I brushed them with milk to soften them and put them in a slightly warmed oven where they did their thing slowly and came out looking slightly dodgy from expanding while being slightly dry on the surface. Still, they look like croissants don't they!
(I salvaged the extra bits of dough and made little rolls with them which is why some don't look particularly croissanty.)
The oven was supposed to be at 200C which proved to be much too hot and I almost burned them, luckily I realised in time, turned it down, and they only came out moderately brown.
They were perfectly acceptable croissants and with a few adjustments in the recipe and technique I think I might achieve pretty damn good croissants. It's labour-intensive but instead of paying $2.50 a croissant I'm guessing these cost at most 20 cents. My plan is to make a couple of batches and freeze them prior to the second rising, then just pull them out as needed. Imagine having a freezer-ful of pain au chocolate or almond croissants as well as plain ones!
ETA: The recipe I used comes from Alison and Simon Holst's Bread Book but there are lots of recipes online too. I'd be a bit reluctant to post the recipe up anyways, but you need all the diagrams to show you how to fold everything and there is no way I'm drawing all those out!
They look amazing! yum
ReplyDeleteWow! They look fantastic!!
ReplyDeleteI've thought about trying this, but am daunted by the thought of knowing how much butter actually goes into croissants! LOL
I just sat down to eat my lunch, cheese and tomato on cruskits. What do I see, this post. OMG yum, now lunch is incredibly boring, I would far rather homemade croissants with cheese and ham. Drool :)
ReplyDeleteOmigosh. May I come round for morning tea?!?!
ReplyDeleteYummmmmmm.
I'm with Sally -- sometimes ignorance is bliss! I also hate having a bunch of something fattening lying around, so I'm offering to help you out with eating those.
ReplyDeleteYah! Bloggy meet-up at my house - just let me know when you're all flying in and I'll make up a batch. Sadly none of you can come now because, well, we've eaten most of them :-/ I also need to add that one of the things I think I need to do next time is put in more butter. Let's face it, a truly good croissant almost drips butter and these don't. The recipe said 100-150g butter and I was conservative when obviously I should have gone 150g!
ReplyDeleteoh.my.goodness! you do know that it is totally unfair to post that *without* a recipe don't you?! they look scrumptious :)
ReplyDeleteJacqui those look AMAZING!!!! Great work! Can you send some airmail?
ReplyDeleteWow! They look delicious!! I've always been under the impression that croissants are really difficult to make .. are they? x
ReplyDeleteHi Julia! No I wouldn't class them as difficult, particularly if you have experience with making bread already. They're more time-consuming than anything. And maybe a bit fiddly. Even rolling the butter out wasn't that hard in the end. I was really worried about how hard they'd be and then I discovered they weren't once I was in to it. The next time I do it they'll be even easier and hopefully better!
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