Croissants & Pain au Chocolat

As far as I know, there is no one who doesn't like a warm flaky croissant. The beauty of croissant baking is that you can make these beloved tasty things out of really simple ingredients. For buttery croissant, you only need all-purpose flour, water, milk, yeast, sugar, salt and lots of butter.

Oh! And I forgot to tell you one more ingredient for croissant. Guess what?
(Love? Oh, well... you need love in every cooking & baking.)

Croissant baking requires TIME.

Baking croissants takes one or two days. Of course, you are not going to work on the dough the entire time, but each step needs some "resting" time. So, please pick a day that you have nothing to do, and pick a book that you want to read during the resting times if you want to bake croissants at home.


* The following recipe is adopted from Artisanal Bread Baking class materials at French Culinary Institute.


Croissants & Pain au Chocolat
(Yield: 15-16 each/ Cooking time: 7-8 hours)

Ingredients:

Tools you need
+ rolling pin
+ scrapper
+ ruler

Dough
+ 1,000g all-purpose flour
+ 200g milk
+ 380g water
+ 130g sugar
+ 45g fresh yeast (= 18g instant yeast = 22g active dry yeast)
+ 22g salt
+ 40g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature.




Roll-in butter
+ 458g unsalted butter, cold

Chocolate for Pain au Chocolat
+ 30-32 chocolate batons (4" sticks)*, 2 sticks for one pain au chocolat

Egg wash
+ One beaten egg

* If you cannot find chocolate batons for baking, you can use regular chocolate. When you wrap the regular chocolate with the dough, just be careful not to place the chocolate at the edge of the dough to prevent the chocolate from oozing out.


Procedures:

1-1. Measure all the ingredients under "dough" first. Mix all of them except sugar in a mixing bowl.
1-2. Mix the ingredients at low speed (speed 1 in KichenAid) with dough hook attached until the dough comes together without any chunk of butter or flour. You can mix the ingredients with your hands if you don't have a mixer.
1-3. Add sugar little by little while you are mixing the dough at speed 1.
1-4. When all the sugar is incorporated, the dough is fairly stiff but still sticky.


2-1. Scrap the dough from the hook and sides of the bowl to the center of the bowl.
2-2. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for an hour. After an hour, the dough should have increased in volume significantly.


3-1. Prepare 16"x12" sheet pan with parchment paper layered. Scrap the dough from the bowl and place it on the prepared sheet pan.
3-2. Punch the dough to flatten, and shape the dough to a rectangular shape. You can use your rolling pin or just roughly shape with hands. Roll it (or shape it) to 16" x 12", which is the size of half sheet pan.
3-3. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
3-4. Place in freezer for about an hour and a half. The internal temperature of the dough should be below 60°F (~15°C).


4-1. While waiting for the dough, we can form a roll-in butter. First, with a parchment paper, make 8"x13" pocket.
4-2. Pound out cold butter with rolling pin to make it soft but not melting.
4-3. Wrap the butter with the parchment paper, and pound with rolling pin.
4-4. Make rectangle of 8"x13". If the butter becomes too soft and starts to melt, refrigerate the butter to make sure the temperature is below 60°F (~15°C).


5. Dust the surface that you want to roll the dough with enough flour.


6-1. Take out the 16"x12" dough from the freezer. Roll the dough to 16"x13", so that the dough can be around the same thickness with the butter.
6-2. Unwrap the butter from parchment paper and place it on the center of the dough.
6-3. Fold the dough over the butter.
6-4. Make sure the dough touches each other's end and the butter is completely covered. Now, the size of dough is 8"x13", and you have 3 layers in the dough (dough-butter-dough).


7-1. With a rolling pin, roll the dough to 8"x32". To roll successfully, the dough should not stick to the surface. Please make sure to dust the surface with lots of flour.
7-2. Lift the bottom 2" of the dough and fold up.
7-3. Fold down the top of the dough so the ends of the dough meet each other.
7-4. Then fold the folded dough in half... like a book. Now you have 9 layers in the dough and the dough size is 8"x8".


8. Wrap the dough tightly and let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.


9. Again, dust the surface with enough flour. Rotate the dough from #8 by 90 degree so that the spine is on your left.


10-1. Roll the dough to 8"x32" again.
10-2. Lift and fold the bottom 1/3 upward.
10-3. Fold the top 1/3 downward to overlap with the bottom fold. Now, you have 25 layers in the dough and the dough size is 8"x10.6".


11. Rotate the dough by 90 degree so that the spine is on your left. Roll the dough again to 12"x16". Wrap tightly again and let the dough rest in refrigerator 2 hours.


12. Ok... now we are in the FINAL roll. ;) Take out the dough from the fridge, and place it over flour-dusted surface with the spine on your left side.

13-1. Roll the dough to 16"x32".
13-2. Cut the dough into two strips horizontally, which would make two strips of 8"x32". With one of the strips, we are going to make regular croissants. And, with the other strip, pain au chocolat will be made.


Croissants

14. Mark the base of the dough every 4". At the top... first, off set 2" and then mark every 4". Slice the dough following the marks.


15. Take one triangle. Cut 1/2"mark in the center of the base of the triangle.


16. Stretch the center of the dough with your thumb gently.


17-1. Extend the base. It should look like the Eiffel Tower.
17-2. Fold the inside corners of the 1/2" cut.
17-3. Gently press the end with your finger and star rolling. Please do not touch the center of the dough, and roll the dough only by rolling both edges of the base.
17-4. Roll the dough toward the tip.



Pain au Chocolat

18. Mark the base and top of the dough at every 4". Slice the dough following the marks.


19-1. Place a chocolate stick, at about bottom third.
19-2. Wrap the chocolate with the dough.
19-3. Place another chocolate stick.
19-4. Fold the dough again so both the chocolate sticks are wrapped with the dough.


20. Place the rolled dough (both the croissants and pain au chocolat) in sheet pans with parchment paper or silicon pad. Egg wash lightly.


21. Covered with plastic wrap very loosely, proof the rolled-dough for about 2 hours at 78°F (~25.5°C). If the temperature is higher proof time will be shorter. Proof until the dough is puffed up as shown in picture below.

Before proof


After proof


22. Preheat your oven at 430°F (~220°C) while the dough is proofing.

23. Gently egg wash again right before baking.


24. Bake croissants at 430°F (~220°C) preheated oven for 6-7 minutes, and turn the pan around and bake for another 6-7 minutes (total 12-15 minutes) until the top of croissant is golden brown.



Enjoy~