Name: Professor Calvel’s Croissant Dough
Yield: Makes 1.12 kg, enough for 30-40 pastries
Cuisine: Danish
Ingredients: 225 g unsalted butter, cold; 3½ teaspoons fine granulated active dried yeast or instant yeast; 1 teaspoon organic malt syrup or honey; 180 ml whole milk, scalded and cooled to room temperature; 50 g caster sugar; 500 g unbleached bread flour; 2 teaspoons fine sea salt; 120 ml room-temperature tap water, about 24°C; 35 g unbleached bread flour; 15 g unsalted butter, softened

Preparation info

Makes 1.12 kg , enough for
30-40
pastries

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Pastry Perfection

By Nick Malgieri

Published 2014

About

The late Raymond Calvel, the father of modern French breadmaking, wrote about croissants in his second book, Le Gout du Pain (The Flavour of Bread). This recipe is modified from his in that I’ve used whole milk instead of dried milk because whole milk contributes a fresher taste to the croissants and I have not added ascorbic acid (vitamin C).