Angela Day
Making light flaky buttery croissants isn’t difficult – it just takes a bit of time.
Set aside a day when you can make a batch or two of this delicious pastry and store it in the freezer. The pastry can be used for making Danish pastries as well as croissants.
Some recipes call for the butter to be added in the first rolling and folding, like you would do for puff pastry, but we found adding it in the seven stages makes it easier to incorporate the butter without having it ooze out, and it also gives you lots of buttery layers.
It’s as much trouble to make 1 or 2 batches of pastry so it’s worth making extra to have on hand in the freezer.
The pastry can be frozen then thawed to room temperature, rolled and shaped, then left to prove before baking.
Or shape the croissants and then freeze them. Bring them to room temperature to prove before baking.
CROISSANT PASTRY
Pictures in the gallery above
Makes 12-14
750ml flour
3ml salt
45ml sugar
30g butter
10g sachet of instant yeast
180ml lukewarm milk
1 egg
5ml lemon juice
210g butter
beaten egg for glazing
1 Combine flour, salt and sugar and rub in the 30g butter. Add the yeast and mix well.
2 Combine milk, eggs and lemon juice and add to dry ingredients to form a dough that is soft, but not sticky. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Place the dough into a plastic bag and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Divide the remaining butter into 7 portions of 30g each.
3 Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it into a rectangle about 35x25cm.
4 Take one of the seven portions of butter and dot it over 2/3 of the dough. Leaving the top third of the dough uncovered.
5 Fold this portion of dough over the middle third.
6 Fold the remaining third over the folded dough. Turn it 90° to the left.
7 Seal the edges by pressing down with a rolling pin. Seal edges and place the dough into a plastic bag and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Remove from the fridge and repeat the rolling and adding another portion of butter as stated above. Repeat this process until all 7 portions of butter have been used.
Once the final rolling and folding has taken place, it is best to rest the dough in the fridge overnight. The dough can also be frozen at this point.
BAKING
Once you’re ready to use the dough and you have thawed and proved it, shape it into croissants as shown in the pictures in the gallery above).
Place croissants on to a greased baking tray with the point tucked underneath.
Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for 20-30 minutes.
Brush the croissants with beaten egg and bake at 200°C for 25 minutes until golden brown. Then remove from oven and brush lightly with glaze.
GLAZING
Combine 250ml sugar with 125ml water and bring to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove and cool. Refrigerate until required.
Brushing the pastries with this glaze gives them a nice shine.
HOW TO SHAPE THEM
See pictures in the gallery above
1 Divide the dough in half.
2 Roll each portion into long strips about 15cm wide and about 7mm thick.
3 Make 10cm markings on one side of the strip. On the other side of the strip make one 5cm marking and then 10cm markings.
4 Line up the markings with a zigzag pattern to form triangles. Cut through the dough.
5 Make a little cut at the base of the triangle to ensure it rolls up evenly. Roll the pastry towards the point of the triangle. Use a little beaten egg white to secure the point of the triangle.
PICTURES: Chris Collingridge, Independent Media
* The Angela Day cookery column is published in The Star, the Cape Argus, the Daily News and the Pretoria News.