We will, of course, enjoy one fresh from the oven, and the rest will go in the freezer for many wonderful weekend breakfasts.

Cooked croissants

The Recipe

If you want to make your own croissants, I used a recipe by Pino Ficara. I recommend watching the video before you start.

The Rest of the Series

This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:

1. Rolling Butter;
2. Preparing the Dough;
3. Layering the Butter;
4. Shaping and Baking;
5. The Finished Product.

The warm weather delayed us. The morning sun streaming through the window made it too hot to handle the dough. It was melting in our hands thanks to the high butter content. This afternoon, we have had more luck.

Layered croissant dough

We rolled out the parcels dough, shaped it into croissants and pain aux chocolat, and left it for the final rise. Croissants start out as long triangles of dough, which are rolled up and tucked into their crescent shape. Pain aux chocolat are simple rectangles with a piece of dark chocolate rolled in the middle.

Rolled and cut croissant dough

The warm weather has at least been helpful with the rising; by the time we finished shaping our last batch of dough, the first croissants we made were nicely risen. We gave them a final coating of egg wash before going in the oven.

Shaped croissants and pain aux chocolat

The Rest of the Series

This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:

1. Rolling Butter;
2. Preparing the Dough;
3. Layering the Butter;
4. Shaping and Baking;
5. The Finished Product.

Risen croissant dough

The next step is layering the dough and butter. This is how all those wonderfully flaky layers are created in the finished croissants.

Rolled butter layed on croissant dough

We divided our dough into four portions to make it easier to work with. Using a lot of flour, we rolled it out into a large rectangle, then layered the butter sheets on top, and folded it up like a letter. Another round of rolling and folding, and it’s wrapped up in cling film again, and put in the fridge overnight.

Rolled and layered croissant dough

We have four parcels in the fridge ready to be turned into croissants tomorrow morning.

Rolled and layered croissant dough in fridge

The Rest of the Series

This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:

1. Rolling Butter;
2. Preparing the Dough;
3. Layering the Butter;
4. Shaping and Baking;
5. The Finished Product.

Bowls of milk and yeast; flour, sugar, and salt

The dough is a simple mix of warm milk, yeast, flour, sugar, and salt. After letting the yeast dissolve in the milk, everything is mixed together until it becomes a very sticky, elastic dough.

Adding yeast to warm milk

Then is the fun part; wrapping it all up in lots of cling film. The cling film is the only thing preventing a great dough explosion in your fridge, so you don’t want to skimp.

Croissant dough

Croissant dough wrapped in cling film

Our dough will now spend eight hours in the fridge while the yeast  does its thing. I’ll be back later when we layer the butter with the dough.

The Rest of the Series

This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:

1. Rolling Butter;
2. Preparing the Dough;
3. Layering the Butter;
4. Shaping and Baking;
5. The Finished Product.

Croissants were a regular weekend breakfast treat when we lived in France. We are yet to find any locally that compare, so we started making our own. This will be our second batch, and I invite you join us on this croissant-making adventure.

Rolling the Butter

Sheets of rolled butter

We have started by rolling out the butter. You take blocks of butter and roll it out into thin sheets. I was absolutely amazed the first time we managed to roll out a sheet of butter; I didn’t expect it to go well. Graham has mastered the art of butter rolling, and we have 12 sheets of butter in the fridge chilling for tomorrow.

Block of butter

Sheets of rolled butter

The Rest of the Series

This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:

1. Rolling Butter;
2. Preparing the Dough;
3. Layering the Butter;
4. Shaping and Baking;
5. The Finished Product.

Our profiteroles were inspired by one of the first pastry treats we tried in Lyon, France. These wonderful pasties were filled with coffee crème pâtissière and smothered with coffee icing.

French profiteroles

Ours were smaller and less elaborate, but still delicious.

Profiteroles are basically a pastry shell, filled with custard (crème pâtissière, or pastry cream, is basically custard) or whipped cream. They take some time to make, but come together surprisingly easily. I think that choux pastry (the pastry shell of a profiterole) is the least labour intensive dough I have made. With the help of our stick mixer with whisk attachment, it was whipped up and in the oven in 10 minutes.

Piping choux pastry onto a baking tray ready for the oven

Profiterole shells cooling on a rack

The stick mixer also made easy work of the custard. The longest part of the whole process is waiting for the pastry and custard to cool before you can pipe the custard into the pastry shells.

The finished product: homemade coffee profiteroles

I can also recommend using the egg whites left over from the custard to make meringues, and enjoying them with the left over coffee cream.