Croissants

Croissants are made by preparing a firm but malleable dough with minimal kneading from flour, milk, and yeast; the proportion of liquid is 50–70 parts to 100 flour. Some butter may be added to the dough during mixing to make the dough more extensible and easily rolled out. In earlier times, the dough was allowed an initial rise of six to seven hours; today it’s only around one hour. The more time allowed for fermentation, the fuller the flavor and the lighter the finished pastry. The risen dough is deflated and chilled, then rolled out, covered with a layer of butter or pastry margarine, and repeatedly folded, rolled out, and chilled as puff pastry is, for a total of four to six turns. The finished dough is then rolled out to around a quarter of an inch/6 mm thick, cut into triangles, the triangles rolled up into tapered cylinders and allowed a final rise of about an hour at a temperature cool enough to prevent the fat from melting. When baked, the outer layers of the dough expand and dry out to form flaky, puff pastry–like sheets, while the inner layers remain moist and bake into exquisitely delicate sheets of bread, translucent and pebbled with tiny bubbles.