The Secret to Croissants…

In October, my mom and I went to a Sur La Table Croissant class. I learned so much in this class and thought I would share everything I learned.

Since it was only a 3 hour class, we had to shorten the process. We started with making 2 fillings. The first was an almond paste we made in a food processor, and some caramelized onions that were given to us.

After we had the fillings prepared, we were given pre-laminated dough which a previous croissant class had prepared. We cut the dough in half then rolled it out to make 2 12x8 inch rectangles. To make the chocolate almond croissants, we cut one half the dough into 6 squares. For the onion gruyère croissants, we cut the dough into 6 triangles similar to how you would for a classic croissant.

To actually fill the almond chocolate croissants, we spread some of the almond paste around the dough, then placed chocolate chips on one side, folded it, then placed chocolate chips on the other side and folded it in to create the shape.

For the Onion and gruyère crossiants, you placed the onion and gruyère at the base of the triangles and rolled up. We then topped both with an egg wash, and the chocolate almond ones with shaved almonds and extra almond paste.

While these had time to rise, and bake in the oven, we went back to the beginning of the croissant process, and made the dough. Due to time, we could not make the croissants in order.

To start making the dough, we incorporated room temp milk, sugar, yeast, flour, salt, and butter, making sure to not let the salt and yeast touch in the bowl before mixing everything together because the salt can deactivate the yeast. We let the dough mix in the mixer on medium speed, continuing to add flour, for about 10 mins until it passed the window pane test where you can stretch a small amount of dough so think that you can see light through it.

We then created a tense ball and allowed it to rise while we made the butter block.

We started making the butter block while our dough rose by my mixing cold butter with a little bit of flour in a stand mixer. We then took a gallon ziplock bag to put all the butter in. We created an even butter layer filling the entire bag to make a perfect square. This was then put in the freezer to become solid while we rolled out the dough.

To roll out the dough, and begin the laminating processing. We made a large rectangle that was 15x12. Then we placed the butter mainly on one side of the dough, and folded the dough over the butter, then folded the butter and the dough over itself.

We then turned the dough, and rolled the dough out into a large rectangle again and trimmed the edges that did not have butter in them. Then we folded 3/4 of the dough over itself and then met the rest of the dough by folding it over, and pinched the seems.

We turned the dough once more before rolling it out into a long rectangle once again and trimming the sides that did not have butter. For the final fold, fold both sides into the middle equally, then fold one side over the other creating a stack of dough.

Now, you are back to where we started in the beginning when the dough was given to us, so after refrigerating it, you can cut and shape the croissants.

In the class, by this time, the croissants were done cooking and we could take them home! Here are some final pictures:

This was a wonderful experience in Houston!! I can’t wait to do it again sometime and keep learning!