Bake-Along #80 theme bake is "Croissant", selected by Lena, to bake together with Zoe, myself and anyone who wishes to bake-along with us. When Lena suggested Croissant as our bake-along, I have mixed reactions to it, LOL! Firstly, croissant has been on my list for ages. This very "leceh" (troublesome!) yeasted pastry is a challenge indeed to make in our super hot blazing weather and I'm not sure whether I could pull it through. But I would love to give it a try, so why not! And tried it I did, a total of 4 times! And I failed in all tries!
Croissant is a yeasted pastry with a layer of butter enclosed in between two layers of yeasted dough. It is then rolled and folded (laminating process), which is repeated three times, then the final rolling to a very thin layer, cut to triangles and rolled into croissants. In between all the rolling and folding, the dough has to be refrigerated to keep it cool at all times. Some of the recipes requires that in the initial stage, the dough need to be refrigerated overnight, before it is rolled and folded the next day. Then again, before the final rolling and cutting, the dough is refrigerated once again overnight. It takes about 2-3 days, depending on the recipe, to make a batch of croissant.
The first recipe I tried, the yeast did not rise at all. What a bummer! The second time I made it using a different recipe (Bourke Street Bakery), I made half a recipe. During the laminating process, the butter leaks out, and I am unable to roll it out, even when I tried patching it with flour. In the end, I baked the croissant as squares as I did not manage to roll it out thinly. It was really ugly, but my goodness, it tasted awesome! The top is all crispy with soft chewy bread-like centres, and deliciously buttery!
Dissatisfied, I tried making it again with the same recipe, but again, the butter softened really fast, even though I refrigerated the dough very often in between rolling, and was extra careful with the rolling. I failed again and that dough landed in the bin. After wasting a few bars of butters, and the time spent on it, I was feeling very frustrated, and asked Lena how her croissant was. Lena gave me the link to this recipe and I thought that whether successful or not, I'll just try this one more time. I was glad that this is a small recipe, it is easier to handle.
I did manage to roll it out thinly, cut it and shape into croissants.
.... and baked them till golden brown.
but I am not satisfied with this at all. These are far from perfect!
I love eating croissants and I'm not giving up on my attempt to make them again. There are many areas for me to improve. Making these yeasted pastry in our hot weather is very, very, challenging, and very, very, frustrating! I will have to make a few adjustments to that!
Anyone interested to try your hands at making this really challenging Croissants? Please do! Join us, and link your post in our linky below.
I'm not giving the recipe, but if you would like to give it a try, you can find it
here.
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For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking "Bacon Cheddar Scones", from Bouchon Bakery, pg 72, or here. Please do join us, link your post to our linky which will open from 18th till 27th June. Everyone is welcome to join us! Only current post please.
A friendly reminder when linking to our blog hop :
1. Please mention Bake-Along event in your own post linking direct to any of the hosts' post (
Joyce,
Lena or
Zoe)
2. Please link only new and current post, PLEASE FOLLOW THE BAKE OR THEME provided by us. Unrelated post will be deleted.
3. Feel free to display our Bake-Along badge in your post.
