Sourdough Croissants

I confess...that I ate 6 croissants the day I baked these...

The winter is definitely here. The other morning I took my dog out for a walk and the grass was all frosty. Oh yes!!, I (and I think my dog) love that 'crunch crunch'!

You know what this cold weather means, don't you? It's the perfect time for the buttery pastry thing, CROISSANTS!

Ingredients:

Sourdough starter 125g

Flour 400g (300g Strong flour + 100g plain flour)

Milk 200g

Sugar 40g

Butter 40g

Salt pinch

Butter (for folding in) 230g

Here is the how to - sourdough croissant recipe.

The key to good croissants is patience. And my patience was really tested this time. The first rise took nearly 24 hours in
low temperature. Then, the folding the butter business. At last, I get to do the shaping and the final rise. Again, it took long..., so long that I went to bed...

I'm sure that when you watch the dough, they won't rise!!!

I woke up with a nightmare. In that, my chiffon cake went horribly wrong...;( But, when I actually went back to the kitchen my croissants were waiting there nicely and ready to go in the oven, phew...

Here, we have beautiful layers!

Looking this brought tears in me eyes... (ok,  not really, not that much...)

Flaky outside and light texture with a hint of sourdough kick.

Who can say no to this...

I also made some with Hazelnut praline paste.

I ate it in 5 seconds... ;-d

Croissants with Lemon Yeast

My new Lemon Yeast is doing pretty well, and the sweet smell of the starter inspired me to make some pastry stuff with it such as...,Croissants, yay!

The recipe is the same as Croissant - Strawberry Yeast -.

Although the lemon starter has a quite strong lemony smell that carried on to the dough, I didn't really taste the lemon when the bread is baked.

This time, I made three different types of croissants.

Plain...

Almond... (filling recipe below.)

Lemon and coconut... (filling recipe below.)

Almond filling -

Ingredients:

Almond powder 50g

Sugar 40g

Butter 40g

Egg 30g

• Cream all the ingredients and chill in the fridge. 

Lemon & Coconut filling -

Ingredients:

Fresh lemon juice 100ml

*Sugar 50-100 g

Egg 2

Coconut butter 75g

Lemon zest 1/2 tsp

(*50g make it very lemony and sharp. Adjust the amount according to your desired sweetness.)

• Mix all the ingredients together in a heat proof bowl, and Bain Marie until the mixture thickens. Sieve the mixture for a smooth texture.

I made these croissants a day before the Race for Life 10km run so that I could treat myself after my race. And yes, I did... I had four of them afterwards! The flaky buttery pastry was the best cure for my empty and exhausted stomach...:D

Andy made me omelet to make a croissant sandwich.

Seriously..., the Croissant sandwich...

If I didn't care about my figure, I would choose croissants as my sandwich bread all the time...;d

Croissant - Strawberry yeast

It's been a while since I made croissants and last weekend I had a sudden craving for the buttery pastry.

I choose my strawberry yeast in order to achieve a nice flaky outside. (my strawberry guys are the best when it comes to the crust!). My guys did a great job. The croissants came out with flaky layers and they smelt heavenly!

I used the same recipe as the one with raisin starter, but I added a tea spoon of honey in the dough. Because it's pretty cold now, the proofing took much longer this time, in fact I went to sleep during the final proofing....;D

The following morning, we had freshly baked croissants.... yes, nothing can beat freshly baked croissants on a Saturday morning! They were simply beautiful, probably the best croissants I ever made! And it had no yeast but my starter!

I just love those moments when a long process comes down to a perfect success, and it definitely was one of those moment. :D

Forget about the amount of butter! It's a 'Buttery Heaven'!

And, mini ones for Lana;)

Christmas party at Tinny's

This Saturday we had a Christmas party at Tinny's and, OH YES! I was responsible for desserts and cakes (What Tinny calls Yumicakes...;D).

I was so excited to make cakes for everyone and had so many ideas about what to bring, and...I ended up making... profiteroles, fruits tartlets, Swiss rolls, cheesy scones, mini croissants, and a loaf of bread...

For the profiteroles, I made mini choux buns and filled them with three different creams, cream patissiere, vanilla flavoured fresh cream, and chocolate cream.

There were also two different tartlets. One with vanilla tart and cream cheese topped with strawberries and blue berries, the other with chocolate tart and chocolate cream cheese topped with banana and cherry.

Swiss rolls came in twos too... a soft vanilla and a rich chocolate...

I was too busy eating that I forgot to take phtotos of scones and mini croissants... (they were the ones that appeared on my blog before.) I brought them in the edible bread bowls.

After all those food, my belly was so full (I felt still full even the following day. I had to go for a run...)!

I had such a good time and it was very nice seeing and catching up with everyone.

And of course..., special thanks to Tinny for a great time and letting me bring so many cakes. ;D

Croissant with raisin starter

After making the tiny croissants, I had an urge to make proper croissants.

This time I decided to use no yeast but my raisin starter. For the raisin starter, I do the same as the raisin yeast, then combine the liquid with the same amount of flour. I feed the starter for 3 days (I do 'water : flour = 1:1').
I've explained it very simply here but the makings of a starter is a bit more complicated than that and needs a great deal of attention... I'm still experimenting in order to achieve 'the one'. Anyway..., hopefully I will be able to share the details of the raisin starter on another post some time soon.

So... back to the croissants! The process of folding a sheet of butter is very similar to puff pastry. I have made an illustration below to show you how to do it. Hope that will help. ;) One thing to remember is to work quickly in order to keep the butter cold. We don't want the butter to melt into the dough.

After hours of preparation, I finally got my croissants! They weren't as airy as French ones, but still nice and crisp, very good indeed! I say they are more like 'Le Croissant au Japon' (forgive my french...;D). They were so addictive that I had a few for breakfast and five (or maybe more... I lost count...) for lunch... They didn't make it for dinner...

I shouldn't think about the amount of butter I consumed from them..., well, I don't care... I went for a run the following morning anyway...;)

Ingredients:

Raisin starter 200g

Flour 400g

Milk 200g

Sugar 50g

Butter 40g

Salt pinch

Butter (for folding in) 230g

1. Take the raisin starter out from the fridge to bring it to room temperature.

2. Combine all the ingredients and knead in the standing mixer for 10 minutes.

3. Leave it in the fridge overnight.

4. Prepare butter for folding in the dough. Wrap the butter with cling film and make a sheet of 20cmx 20cm square. Rest it in the fridge.

5. Take put the dough from fridge and roll it out to 40cm x 40cm square.

6. Fold the butter in (see below for how to do it). Chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

7. Repeat the process two more times.

8. Wrap the dough in a cling film and rest it overnight.

9. Roll out the dough to 3-4mm thickness. Cut each edge so that you have a nice rectangle shape.

10. Cut the dough into triangles. Make a small cut on the short side.

11. Roll the triangle from the wide end to the pointed end. Place the croissants on a baking tray, cover with a cling film, and leave them for 3-4 hours.

12. Preheat the oven to 200ºc.

13. Egg wash the croissants and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the croissants are lightly brown.

The tiniest croissants

With the leftover puff pastry for my Ultimate apple pie I made these tiny croissants. They were the smallest croissants I've ever made, eaten or even seen!

Look at the size of pine corn behind! They were so cute looking like a toy. I wanted to leave them on the table as a display but they went into my belly instead...