Catching Up: Learning To Make Croissants
Dec. 31st, 2014 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tuftearsFollowing up on my previous donuts class, I signed up for a croissants class.
This classroom in the back of the Sur La Table store is beginning to feel familiar.
I saw a classmate that I'd previously seen at the Donuts class. I was a bit surprised, having thought she'd taken this class already. Evidently not!
We began with pre-made dough. Evidently this is easier because croissant dough takes some time to prep and chill, and it needs to rise after it's shaped. This is similar to how it worked for the donuts class, really. One takes a lump of dough, rolls it out flat (very flat), then cuts it into 3x5" triangles or rectangles and rolls them up into the shapes seen above. They can be made with ham and cheese fillings, chocolate, et cetera.
Since it's hard to see through the pastry to guess what kind of filling is inside, the instructor suggested using different shapes to represent the different kinds of filings.
Here, the instructor is going through various steps of making the croissant dough. You begin with a general pastry dough... The interesting part is the butter.
You know how they say that the secret to a croissant is multiple layers of dough and butter, many fine layers pressed together so the butter puffs up when cooked, forming little pockets of deliciousness? Yeah, that's how this is done. You get a large sheet of wax paper, put a sizable chunk of butter on it, fold it up like an envelope... Then roll it out flat. Real flat.
Then you put the sheet of butter on top of the dough, and fold it over in thirds. Then fold again, a few more times, rolling it out flat each time. After that, you wind up with a chunk of dough that you can then wrap up and freeze until you're ready to use it.
Croissants freshly out of the oven.
And they're finished! The instructors made some chocolate sauce on the side and drizzled that over the chocolate-filled donuts. Yum!
They had us take the dough we made home, so I have a third of a chunk of croissant dough that I should use for something at some point. Maybe I'll make hors d'ouevres by cutting out squares of dough and putting chicken-apple slices on them. Mmm.
This classroom in the back of the Sur La Table store is beginning to feel familiar.
I saw a classmate that I'd previously seen at the Donuts class. I was a bit surprised, having thought she'd taken this class already. Evidently not!
We began with pre-made dough. Evidently this is easier because croissant dough takes some time to prep and chill, and it needs to rise after it's shaped. This is similar to how it worked for the donuts class, really. One takes a lump of dough, rolls it out flat (very flat), then cuts it into 3x5" triangles or rectangles and rolls them up into the shapes seen above. They can be made with ham and cheese fillings, chocolate, et cetera.
Since it's hard to see through the pastry to guess what kind of filling is inside, the instructor suggested using different shapes to represent the different kinds of filings.
Here, the instructor is going through various steps of making the croissant dough. You begin with a general pastry dough... The interesting part is the butter.
You know how they say that the secret to a croissant is multiple layers of dough and butter, many fine layers pressed together so the butter puffs up when cooked, forming little pockets of deliciousness? Yeah, that's how this is done. You get a large sheet of wax paper, put a sizable chunk of butter on it, fold it up like an envelope... Then roll it out flat. Real flat.
Then you put the sheet of butter on top of the dough, and fold it over in thirds. Then fold again, a few more times, rolling it out flat each time. After that, you wind up with a chunk of dough that you can then wrap up and freeze until you're ready to use it.
Croissants freshly out of the oven.
And they're finished! The instructors made some chocolate sauce on the side and drizzled that over the chocolate-filled donuts. Yum!
They had us take the dough we made home, so I have a third of a chunk of croissant dough that I should use for something at some point. Maybe I'll make hors d'ouevres by cutting out squares of dough and putting chicken-apple slices on them. Mmm.
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-01 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-02 11:47 pm (UTC)Also, is the colour balance of the pictures off, or were the uncooked ones brushed with egg yolk? They look very yellow.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-02 11:53 pm (UTC)Some had some kind of almond paste; some had ham 'n cheese; some had chocolate, and of course, some were simply unfilled.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-04 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-04 03:32 am (UTC)