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.

Raisin yeast

It's been a little while since my last post.. and what have I been up to? ..., I've been creating a new life! ...Ok, let me explain... When I say "life", I don't quite mean something with arms and legs... I mean my own "Yeast"!

Creating my own yeast was something that I'd been always interested in but not been able to bring myself to go through all those "complicated" process. However, my "want" finally beat "lazy-me" and I decided to give it a try...

So... first of all, I read a quite a few stuff to know what is the best for a beginner, and came to a conclusion that "raisin" was the easiest. I got my jars out and sterilized them thoroughly in a boiling water for 30 minutes. After I got my jars ready, all the ingredients were placed... and the lid was back on... Day 1, obviously, no change in the jar...

Day 2..., some raisins were already up to the top, and the water started to have brownish colour....

Day 3-4..., more raisins were coming up and I started to notice bubbles around the raisins too.

Day 5..., most of the raisins came up to the surface, and I could definitely smell something like wine and cider.. I decided to leave it one more day.

Day 6...,
I declared that my raisin yeast was successfully done!




Now, let's make the bread! This time I opted for a very simple recipe (the most easiest method in which you used the yeast liquid straight to combine the flour and other ingredients.) to see if my yeast actually works. Having done the kneading I let the dough rest to rise with a hope of "please work, my lovely yeast...!" See? At this point, I was so attached to my yeast that it was almost like my baby...

To my amazement, on the following day I found my dough more than twice as big as the initial size! Yes, that's a great success! I made a caramel marble loaf and some buns with home made vanilla butter cream inside.

Both the loaf and buns tasted awesome. The bread rose so well that it looked just the same as the bread made with dried yeast. The best thing with this raisin yeast bread was that there was no yeasty taste that I sometimes find unpleasant when I make bread with commercial yeast.

Ooh well, my own very first yeast was a big success. My next step will be trying to use other ingredients other than raisins, and also to make a starter from the raisin yeast and keep feeding it to let it last for ever...

I'll be updating how my yeast experiment goes ;D

Here is how I did it...;

Raisin yeast:

Water 500ml

Dried raisin (non oil coated) 100g

Sugar 1 tbsp

1. Sterilize the jar which you are going to put the water and raisins.

2. Place water, raisin and sugar in the jar. Put on the lid and give a little shake. Place in a room temperature.

3. Shake the jar a couple of times a day and each time open the lid to give it a fresh air.

4. After a few days, the raisins start to come up to the top, and you'll start to notice some bubbles around the raisins as well as "wine-like" smell.

5. When all the raisins have come up to the top, and you hear "pop" as you open the lid, that's the sign of done!

**NOTE**

If you noticed any strange smell or mould in the jar, unfortunately it's gone off..., so start again... Make sure that you sterilize everything you use including spoons or measuring cups.

Raisin yeast bread (straight method):

Flour 250g

Raisin yeast liquid 130g

Butter 50g

Egg 1

Sugar 30g

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix until it becomes a dough.

2. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead for 10 to 15 minutes until the surface of the dough is smooth.

3. Please the dough in a clean bowl and cover. Leave it until the dough has become twice the size of the initial size. (it might take more than a day depending on the yeast and temperature.)

4. Take out the dough on a floured surface, and punch it to get the air out.

5. -If you're making rolls, divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and shape into a ball. Place them on a tray and cover. Let it rest for 20 minutes.

-If you're making a loaf, reshape the dough into a round and place it back in a bowl. Let it rest for 40 minutes.

6. Take out the dough, and reshape it into whatever the shape you like. Cover the bread and leave it in a warm place. Prove until the bread has become twice the size of the initial size.

7. Preheat the oven to 180º. Bake for 15 minutes for rolls, or for 45 minutes for a loaf.