This past weekend I had some extra time on my hands and wanted to learn how to cook some difficult dishes, as everything I know how to cook now is very basic. Over the weekend I wanted to learn how to make croissants. Which can be a very difficult dish to make, especially considering I don't have much experience cooking.
Although croissants seem like a simple process since it appears as just dough, the entire process took almost 2 days, this is because there is a lot of waiting in between steps. In the first step, I just made the dough and then refrigerated it overnight, which was probably the easiest part of the entire experience. After the dough has been refrigerated overnight, you have to make a solid square slab of butter, and then place it on the flattened dough. Then you enclose the butter in the dough and roll it out. Next, you have to fold one-third of the dough on top of itself and then fold the other side over it, I had to do this 3 times, and each time you have to place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes which is what made this so time-consuming. After doing this 3 times, 27 layers have been created. After folding it for even longer, finally, you get to divide the dough into proper sized pieces, and then shape it. Shaping it was probably the hardest part of the whole process, as I kept messing up and worrying that I would permanently mess up the dough, which I think I did a tiny bit. The next step is to bake it.
When I took the croissants out of the oven, I immediately knew they did not turn out the way I intended them to. The softness of the bread on the inside reminded me of slightly softer white bread, but they were still very good. Although I messed up on this recipe, I had a lot of fun trying something new, which I think everyone should do. I also got to spend a lot of time with my family during the process. Even though I was upset and thought I wasted lots of ingredients and time, failure is a part of learning, and this was a very fun learning experience that I will try to master over time.
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| Croissant (never took pictures of the ones I made) |
Folding bread dough is some of the most annoying stuff a mentally stable person can do. Because as you fold the dough the gluten complexes and gets harder and depending on the refrigeration time you can completely ruin your layering. I personally think bread layering is the worst thing to do If your inexperienced or at a low level of pastry expertise. But at least I can just go to like giant if my bread gets screwed up then I can mask the pain of hours if not days wasted.
ReplyDeleteThis was fascinating. I had no idea how one would go about making croissants; it’s something I never have spent a second of my life even wondering. And now I know. That’s one reason I love this blogging project!
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