Croissant

So happy that I made my own croissants and chocolate croissants! I think they taste better and more buttery than any other ones I've ever eaten in my life! Adapted from a recipe of a popular Japanese bakery, the secret to these angels are: use good butter, be patient, and be precise and work quickly. I always love fresh bread and pastries from the oven, and these babies are best eaten within an hour they come out of your oven. Otherwise, warming them up in the oven would be the second best alternative... I used French churned butter which made them so delicious!


Ingredients: (recipe comes in percentages, in grams, so you can adjust the quantity that you want to make)

All Purpose Flour...............100%
Water..................................50%
Malt Syrup..........................0.5%
Instant Yeast......................1.1% (dissolved in 2 tsp. of warm water)
Fleur de sel (or salt)..........2%
Skim Milk Powder..............4%
Sugar..................................8%
Unsalted Butter (1)..............5%
Unsalted Butter (2), chilled.............60%
Chocolate chips or sticks ................15%
Egg Wash (egg+ a little water)


Steps:

1. Place the flour into your stand mixer bowl and add the water, salt, milk powder and sugar. Mix on low speed for 5 min. As the machine starts, add in the malt and the yeast that has been dissolved.

2. After the first mix, add in butter (1) and mix on medium speed for 50 seconds.

3. Place the dough in a container and let it ferment for 60 minutes, covered. Room temperature should be around 23c.

4. After its first fermentation, divide dough into 1.7 kg pieces, and roll each piece into a ball. Try to drag it towards your body when forming into a ball so that there is tension on the surface of the dough. Then, flatten dough into 2 inch in thickness.

5. Place the dough on floured container and freeze it overnight till the next morning.

6. Next morning, take dough from freezer onto a floured surface, and roll it into an 8mm thick square. Also roll the butter (2) into an 8 mm thick square btwn. two pieces of parchment paper.

7. Place the sheet of butter diagonally in the center of the dough, fold the corners of the dough to the middle, wrapping the butter completely. Press dough with rolling pin to hold the shape.

8. Working fast, roll dough into a 6-7 mm thick rectangle. Fold it like a letter, with 1/3 of dough on the left folded to the center, and the right third folding over. Then roll dough again into a 6-7mm rectangle and repeat the folding. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and freeze for 90 min.

9. Out of the freezer, roll dough again to 6-7mm thick and fold like a letter and put it back into freezer for another 90 min.

10. Take dough out from freezer and roll it out into a 3mm thick square. Cut the square in half and place one piece over the other. Cut out equivalent triangles with height of 16 cm (not the side!). For chocolate croissant, cut the dough into rectangles about 50g each.

11. Shape the triangular dough by stretching one corner towards your body, place that corner forward, and roll the side from your body towards the stretched point. Place the croissant onto the baking tray. Repeat for remaining plain croissants. For chocolate croissants, place chocolate onto the front section of dough and roll up loosely to form rectangular shape. Place all croissants on baking sheet.

12. Let the dough rise for 1.5-2 hour in room temp., and then brush them with egg wash. After egg wash has dried, brush again. Preheat oven to 425c. After the eggwash has dried, bake croissants for 13 minutes, or until you achieved a darkish golden brown. Cool them a bit on wire rack and enjoy!

**To eat them fresh in the morning, you can freeze unused croissants before step 12 and just let the dough come to room temperature for about an hour before proceeding with step 12!