Modern French Croissants in 4 hours

These Modern French Croissants in 4 Hours was developed for my first book, The New Pastry Cook using the processor to cut frozen butter into chilled dough.  This technique, along with controlling the rising, yields the flakiness that is the standard by which good croissants are judged.  See the picture below. In addition, altering the traditional method of making the folds produces a croissant ready to eat in 4 to 5 hours, start to finish--a far cry from the 18 to 36 hours it used to take.

This 4 hour technique for French Croissants requires no butter blocks and no traditional lamination of the butter and dough.

While all the text and photos seem like a lot, I have done this on purpose to give you every help I could think of to ensure your success with this new method.

Of all the pastries thought of as French, the flaky, buttery rolls, Croissants have gotten to be the best known in America.  The word means crescent, and the French give croissants a special place of honor at their breakfast table.

Recently, the St.Louis food editor questioned the timing of only 4 hours to make these. Here's what he had to say, "We didn't believe it either: You can make exceptional croissants in just four hours. It's true. Why take three days when you can do it in a fraction of the time?" So he did and it resulted in a front page and inside article on the food page attesting to the veracity of the recipe.

For other laminated doughs using the same technique see: A Better Kouign Amann, Pithiviers, and Sunny Side Up Apricot Pastries.

Croissant Queen of Breads is the preface to the Croissant chapter featured in my book, "The New Pastry Cook", published by Wm. Morrow Co., in 1986.  The book focuses on modern methods of making classic pastraies. It is usually available on ebay and sometimes through Amazon.com as well as other resell book stores. Each chapter is made up on a base recipe that uses modern techniques that make it easier, faster and/or better while keeping the core of the original recipe.

What's the Origin of Croissants

While the popular story that croissants were invented to celebrate the defeat of the Ottomans during the 1683 Siege of Vienna is widely repeated, historians consider that story more legend than established fact.

Croissants are French in their modern form, but their story begins in Austria.

The earliest ancestor is the kipferl, a crescent-shaped Austrian pastry that dates back centuries. In the 19th century, Austrian bakers in Paris helped introduce this style of pastry to France. French bakers eventually transformed it into the buttery, laminated pastry we recognize today.

The modern croissant—with layers of yeast-leavened dough and butter—is generally associated with 19th-century France, where it became an iconic part of French baking. In 1839, an Austrian entrepreneur, August Zang, opened the Boulangerie Viennoise in Paris, introducing the crescent kipferl and other Viennese treats.

Early French croissants were made with a simple, brioche-like yeast dough. Around 1915, a French baker named Sylvain Claudius Goy introduced tourage or lamination—repeatedly folding butter into the yeast dough to create delicate, airy layers. The French government officially recognized the flaky croissant as a staple national product by 1920.

What is Laminated Dough

Laminated dough is the technique of layering butter between sheets of dough. In addition to Croissants, it is used for puff pastry and danish dough.

With any layered dough such as croissant dough or puff pastry, the most important process is to get the butter between the layers of dough but not to incorporate it into the dough. When the butter has been properly layered, it will melt in the heat of the oven, forming steam that separates the layers, causing the dough to expand and achieving the much sought after flakiness.

Traditionally, for croissants, this has been done by making a bread dough and rolling it out in a rectangle, two thirds of which is buttered.  The dough is then folded and turned.  The rolling, folding, and turning are repeated several more times, forming hundreds and hundreds of layers of butter and dough.  In this method, the most traumatic occurrence was having the butter break through the dough.  It gave many aspiring at-home pastry chefs a complex they never got over.

Modern Method of Making Croissants

Ingredients for Croissant

Although any yeast product is best eaten the day it is made, slight changes I have made in the formula provide a dough that is tasty and acceptable the second day as well as the first.  Bread flour is used for its high gluten content, which makes it a strong flour capable of supporting the rapid expansion, caused by the yeast and by the method of layering the butter, when the dough is baked.

While bread flour provides the structure that allows the croissants to rise to their fullest potential, to provide the tenderest possible dough, buttermilk has replaced the traditional milk and water.  The acid in the buttermilk tenderizes the gluten and allows the use of a strong flour without sacrificing texture.

Unsalted butter is used for its purity of taste and the fact that it stays harder longer than salted butter does which is important for this technique.

Along with unsalted butter, there is also a small amount of oil in this formula, which lubricates the gluten strands, allowing them to stretch without breaking.  In addition, the oil keeps the dough pliable when it is cold and facilitates rolling out. By allowing the pastry to rise only once, after the croissant is shaped, a bready texture is avoided and time is saved.

It is the cook's good fortune to have available dry powdered buttermilk, usually found in supermarkets near the regular dry milk or in the dairy section.  If buttermilk powder is not available, regular buttermilk can be used, but, because of the difference in viscosity, it is necessary to dilute it with water.  It is also very important that any liquid be cold when it is added to the flour in the processor, to avoid fermentation taking place before desired.  Cold tap water or refrigerated buttermilk are fine.

Keeping the Dough Chilled

Croissant dough must be kept chilled.  The basic flour dough is made in the processor and is chilled in the freezer for about an hour after it is made.  It is then returned to the processor and cut together.  Chilling the dough and using frozen butter prevents the butter from being incorporated into the dough.  The dough is then rolled out and given a double turn or four-fold (folded into four layers) called a book turn, as opposed to the traditional three-fold referred to as a letter turn.

Therefore, the number of times the dough must be rolled and folded can be reduced from four single turns to three double turns, making is possible to complete the rolling and folding in one fell swoop and eliminating the long rest formerly needed between turns.

Keeping the Croissant Dough Cold

A chilled marble rolling pin and a marble surface are best for rolling the dough, as they will stay cold.  However, a wooden rolling pin and a Formica surface are also acceptable. The least desirable are a wooden rolling pin and a wooden rolling surface, as they have a tendency to soften the dough.  

Should the dough become too soft or elastic to roll, put it on a baking sheet and place in the freezer to firm up.  As long as the dough remains chilled, a light sprinkling of flour uder and on top of the dough should suffice when rolling out.

Baking

Other departures from the traditional method of making croissants will be found in the baking.  Several of the recipes call for the pastries to be "double- panned" and also baked in the upper third of the oven.  This simply means that two baking sheets are used, one directly on top of the other.  This prevents the bottom of the pastry from burning during the time it takes to finish the baking, and it is done even when heavy professional baking sheets are used.  

However, if you are using insulated baking pans, do not double-pan. For croissants I have also found that lowering the usual baking temperature to 350 degrees and baking for a longer priod of time (25 minutes) provides a completely baked product without sacrificing any of the flakiness.

Recipe Ingredients

FRONT ROW: Salt, instant yeast, vegetable oil

MIDDLE ROW: Water, sugar and buttermilk

BACK ROW: Unsalted butter, bread flour

1 egg is used for the egg wash. I forgot it in the photo.

Step by Step Instructions

Step 1. Cut each stick of butter in half legnthwise. Step 2. Cross cut the butter into about 8 pieces each. Repeat with second stick of butter. Freeze until rock hard. Step 3. Place the bread flour, sugar, instant years and salt in the bowl of a processor. Step 4. Process about 5 seconds to mix.

Step 5. Pour the buttermilk evenly over the dry ingredients. Step 6. Process until the dough comes together. It should be soft and slightly sticky but not wet. If it is not, add another tablespoon of water. Step 7. Shape it into a ball. Step 8. Flatten it into about an 8" round, place it on a tray covered with parchment paper and freeze for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the edges are very firm about 1/2 inch in all the way around.

Step 9. Remove the dough from the freezer.  Divide the disc into fourths. Step 10. Divide each fourth into 3 pieces. making 12 pieces total. Step 11. Place 4 pieces of dough in the processor with 1/3 of the butter.  Step 12. Process until the butter and dough are cut into varying sizes but keeping some of the larger pieces in tact. It is important not to get the butter too small. 

Step 13. Turn the butter/dough mixture out onto a work surface. Step 14. On a lightly floured surface, shape the mixture into a rectangle about 6" wide and 10" long. Step 15. To make it easier to roll out, take your rolling pin and make 3 or 4 dents into the dough. Step 16. Lightly flour the top of the dough and roll it into a 18x6 inch rectangle. Keep the ends as square as possible and the sides as straight as possible.  Use your hands to even it out and keep the butter from scooting out by placing one hand on each side of the dough and lightly pushing toward the middle. Wipe the rolling pin frequently with paper toweling to keep it clean so it rolls the dough out smoothly. and scrape the work surface to prevent the dough from sticking.

Step 17. After the first roll out, the butter will be visible and of varying sizes throughout the dough. With each successive roll out, the butter will be less noticeable but still there. Step 18. Brush off any excess flour before folding so the pastry will adhere properly. Step 19.   Fold into fourths by bringing the top and bottom ends of the dough to the center. Leave about a 1" channel in the center were the top and bottom will meet. Step 20. Brush the excess flour off again, then fold in half.

Step 21. Turn the dough so the folded edge is to the left.  This completes the first double turn. Step 22. Repeat rolling, folding, and turning in this manner for the second turn and once more for a total of 3 turns.  Because the butter is frozen and the dough well chilled,  it should be possible to complete all 3 turns without chilling the dough between turns.  However, if necessary, place the dough on a baking sheet and put it in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes, then proceed. Step 23. With each turn the dough will become smoother but still with butter visible.  If desired, the dough may be refrigerated between turns. Step 24. Be sure to scrape the work surface with a bench scraper between roll outs and lightly flour the surface to make sure the dough does not stick.

After the third turn, place the dough in a plastic bag and put in the freezer for about 30 minutes before shaping.  If the dough is not to be used immediately, remove from the freezer after 30 minutes and refrigerate up to 3 days before using.  Or the dough may be frozen after completion for 3 to 4 months.  In this case, defrost 24 hours in the refrigerator before using.

Shaping the Croissants

Step 1. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Remove the finished dough from the refrigerator. Step 2. Divide the dough in half and then in half again, making 4 quarters . Return 3 pieces of dough to the refrigerator. Step 3.Place the remaining quarter piece of dough on a lightly floured surface. Step 4. Place it on a parchment lined sheet pan and chill it or freeze it briefly to firm it up and keep the butter hard,

Step 5. Remove the dough from chilling and place it in front of you horizontally Step 6. Cut the rectangle in half. Step 7. Cut one piece on the diagonal into 2 triangles Step 8 8. Repeat with the second piece of dough.. Each piece will have one square and two pointed corners. Pull the square corner gently to the side to even up the triangle somewhat

Step 9. Place one triangle in front of you with the pointed end away from you. Step 10. Starting at the top, make a 5/8" cut in the center top of the dough. Step 11. Stretch the dough sideways to open the cut up. Step 12. Fold the dough down on either side of the cut.

Step 13. Continue rolling the triangle towards the point. Step 14. While rolling with one hand, gently stretch the point of the roll to lengthen it. Be careful not to pull to hard or it can break off. Step 15. Roll all the way to the bottom. Make sure the pointed tail is tucked well underneath so it can't unroll as it bakes. Step 16. To make the traditional crescent shape, gently bend the ends inward,

Step 17. After rising the croissant will be puffed and you can see a piece of the butter still intact. When it melts, it cause steam which makes the layers of the roll separate. Step 18. Double pan the croissants so the bottoms don't over brown or burn. Step 19. While the oven is preheating, egg wash the croissants. Just before putting them in the oven, egg wash them again for the deepest brown without over baking. Place them in the middle shelf of the oven. Bake as directed.

Expert Tips

Keep everything really cold. If anything starts warming, place it in the freezer or fridge to get it cold again.

For the best results use the ingredients listed without substitutions.

Despite the many pictures and text, these go together easily and quickly. Just follow the directions and pictures and you'll have croissants in no time.