I've been wanting to make homemade croissants for quite some time now. The main reason being that I've had a freshly baked croissant before and it tastes like heaven. The slightly crispy, flaky pastry that melts in your mouth like the pound of butter that it contains makes me happier than most other food on the planet. I remember the first time I had a fresh baked croissant. I was living in Italy and had spent the night in Milan. In the morning, my friend Ilaria was walking me to the train station and she said we would just grab some breakfast on the way. As Americans, we're accustomed to food-on-the-go but its typically some sort of greasy, processed slab of mystery meat sandwiched between previously frozen dry bread with a melted piece of "processed American cheese" (don't get me started on American cheese). We stopped at a little corner bakery and I could smell the pastries before we even walked in. On her recommendation, I ordered the chocolate croissant with an espresso and 6 years later, I can still remember exactly how it tasted. Warm, buttery, chocolaty, delicious. In Europe, you can find one of these amazing delicacies on just about every corner but here, they are few and far between. I've also found that many of the "butter croissants" here in the U.S. are actually made with margarine, a horrendous excuse for pure butter. There's nothing worse than thinking you're about to bite into a triangle of heaven and tasting 65% vegetable oil spread. Gross.
The recipe I used looked like it would take about 6 hours, give or take. Its not 6 hours of hands-on baking, more like roll out the dough, refrigerate for an hour, repeat 5 times. The last "rest" in the refrigerater was overnight since I didn't feel like baking until 4am. Knowing what I know now about the lack of sleep I got last night, I should've stayed up baking instead of tossing and turning all night. Still, 2 days is a lot of time to invest in a project that may or may not work out. However, after having been off work for the past 2 weeks, my house is clean, laundry is done and there's not really anything else on my to-do list. Once Mary Elizabeth gets here in less than 3 months, I imagine I won't have so much time to fill with random projects based on food cravings.
Whenever I cook for my friend Kelly, she always asks how I made it and she laughs when I tell her it was easy, mainly because she says that I say everything is easy. She has learned to clarify "Is it your easy or my easy?" Well Kelly, this project is neither. I almost screwed up the whole project from the beginning by failing to see the distinction between dry active yeast (which I had) and the fresh yeast the recipe called for (which I didn't have). Then, being more accustomed to pasta dough which is firm and very forgiving, I learned that pastry dough is very delicate and dare I say, temperamental. But luckily, we made it through the first step without any major catastrophes.
In the second step of this learn-as-you-go process, I learned that rolling out butter is not as easy as it sounds. That is, until I put it in between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Then it was a lot easier. After putting the butter in the dough, it became a lot easier to work with because it was firmer and not falling apart every time I try to do something. Another thing I'm learning is that it is impossible to roll out dough with a 28-week pregnant belly without getting flour and dough all over your shirt. If the shear size of the clothes don't give them away as maternity clothes, the cooking stains on the belly surely will.
Every step of the way, I kept getting my hopes up for the perfect croissant taste. It really didn't seem like a long process until the last 20 minutes waiting for the oven to preheat. Knowing that I was potentially 20 minutes away from heaven (and my stomach was growling in anticipation) made the time start to crawl. So how did my experiment turn out? My kitchen began to smell like a European bakery, yeasty and buttery. They looked perfect going into the oven, though a little flat coming out. And then I tasted...croissant heaven. It tasted just like I had hoped and with a little drizzle of honey, I found myself back in a little European bistro. Then 16 minutes later, the ones with dark chocolate were ready. I literally had chocolate and melted butter dripping down my fingers and a stupid grin across my face. If you have the time and patience for a project like this, it worth every second. I was so proud of my results, I've included a picture below, though a picture does it no justice. Bon apetito.
(Click here for the recipe. I did one more "turn" than the recipe called for. Each turn I did for an hour, except after the fourth I let them sit overnight. I also rolled half of them with a piece of Dove dark chocolate. Everything else was by the book.)
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