Croissants

I perhaps unwisely offered to make fresh croissants for breakfast for everybody the Sunday before Christmas. It was more like croissants for lunch because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I also stupidly didn’t read the recipe properly and didn’t realise that it takes blady ages (like 2 days, no joke). I will admit though, it was totally worth it in the end. They were amazing fresh out of the oven and worth every bit of slightly tipsy pastry rolling that I did. They‘re seriously bad for your arteries though so it’s not something I would do all the time, but hey ho you’re allowed at Christmas, right?

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour

10g salt

80g caster sugar

10g instant yeast

300ml cool water

300ml chilled unsalted butter

1 medium egg

First of all this recipe involves an overnight chilling, so you really need to start it the evening before you actually want to eat them.

Put the flour into a large mixing bowl, and add the salt and sugar to one side and the yeast to the other.

Add the water and mix using a dough hook attachment on a slow speed for 2 minutes, and then a medium speed for 6 minutes.

Tip the dough out onto a floured work surface, dust the ball in flour and place in a plastic bag. Leave to chill in the fridge for an hour.

On a floured surface roll out the dough into a large rectangle, about 1 cm thick.

Squash the butter flat using the rolling pin.

Put the butter on the dough so that it covers around two thirds of the dough.

Fold the third of dough without butter over one third of the butter.

Gently cut off the last bit of butter, being careful not to cut the dough and place it on top of the folded dough. Fold the bottom half of the dough up so that you are left with a sort of dough/butter sandwich. Pinch the edges to seal it and put it back into the plastic bag, and chill for an hour.

Place the dough sandwich onto a lightly floured work surface and the short end facing towards you.

Roll it out into a rectangle about the same size as before.

Fold up one third of the dough, and then fold the top third down onto that so that you make a square. Put the dough back into the bag and chill in the fridge for another hour.

Repeat this twice more, putting the dough back into the fridge for an hour between each fold.

After the final roll and fold, leave the dough in the fridge for at least 8 hours or overnight.

In the morning, line 2/3 baking trays with baking parchment.

Place the dough onto a floured surface and roll out to a large rectangle, around 7mm thick.

Cut the rectangle into two long halves. Out of these cut 6 triangles along each strip.

To roll, hold down the wide base of the triangle and tug the thin end to create some tension in the dough. Start at the fat end of the triangle and roll up into a croissant. Turn the edges slightly inwards and place onto the prepared baking tray.

When you’ve rolled all the croissants, place the trays inside plastic bags and leave to rise at a cool room temperature for about 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Heat the oven to 200⁰C.

Beat the egg and add a pinch of salt. Use a pastry brush to lightly paint the egg wash onto the croissants, and then bake for 15-20 minutes or until gloriously, golden brown.

Cool them on a wire rack and then eat them whilst they’re still warm. You could put jam or chocolate spread on them or something if you’re mad, but to be honest they’re pretty darn good as they are.