Puff pastry croissants: cooking secrets and recipes

What kind of associations do puff pastry croissants give you? With the Eiffel Tower towering over Paris? With the Louvre Museum, where is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa? Or do you think about the gastronomic side of France, imagining yourself in a cozy coffee shop with a cup of aromatic drink, which was served freshly baked croissant?

If this is so, believe me, bite off crispy pastries and drink a sip of hot coffee - an incomparable pleasure. But when there is no way to go to Paris, one thing remains: to create an exquisite atmosphere at home ... in the kitchen.

Butter symbol of France

Puff pastry croissants were born in the bowels of European bakeries in the early 1920s. There is still a debate about which city is their homeland: Vienna or Paris. In any case, French croissant became the progenitor of a whole family of yeast rolls.

A beautiful legend of origin is associated with military operations, when at the end of the XVII century the Ottoman army besieged the capital of Austria. The bakers who worked that night found out that a dig was being prepared under the walls of Vienna, and warned the defenders of the city. As a result, the plan failed, and the enemies left home.

As a sign of victory over the great army of the Ottoman Empire, the confectioners baked crescent-shaped rolls, which was depicted on the flag of the enemy.

Real French puff pastry croissants: recipe with photo

Inspired by the legend, it's time to move to the kitchen and start cooking.

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Pour 14 g of dry yeast into 250 ml of water with a temperature of exactly 25 ⁰ and mix.
2. In a deep bowl, combine 12 g of salt, 500 g of flour and 50 g of sugar.
3. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and knead the dough.
4. Introduce 100 g of cold butter into a ready-to-cook semi-finished product with a fat content of at least 82.5% and mix well for 5 minutes until a smooth, non-sticky surface is obtained.
   
5. Transfer the dough ball into a bowl, cover with foil and let rise at room temperature.
6. After 2 hours, lay out the semi-finished product increased in volume on a table sprinkled with flour. Mash, fold it into an envelope (15 X 20 cm) and put it overnight in the cold.
7. Take a vacuum bag or parchment measuring 14 X 16 cm, put 250 g of oil (82.5%) in it and roll it so that it fills the package. Put in the freezer for the night.
8. In the morning, first of all, remove the workpiece from the bag and allow the oil to warm up a bit and become plastic.
9. After 40 minutes, roll out the dough (15 x 30 cm), put on top of one half a layer of oil and cover the other.
   
10. Start rolling in the middle. The result should be a rectangle measuring 50 x 16 cm.
11. Divide the cake mix into 3 parts by eye. After taking 1/3 of the dough, fold it like a blanket. The rest - in half, connect the edges. This technology is called tour simple.
    
12. Roll out the dough a little. Fold in half to get a tour double.
13. Roll the formation again (50 x 16 cm). Divide it mentally into 3 parts. Fold the extreme sides to the center. Now roll it into a rectangle (15 x 13 cm) and put it in the refrigerator for an hour.
14. Divide the chilled dough into 2 parts. Return one to the refrigerator, and on the other, start work.
15. Roll the semi-finished product into a layer (18 x 32 cm). Slice into triangles and roll them into rolls.
    
16. Line baking paper on a baking sheet, place the croissants from puff pastry, leaving a few centimeters between them. Lubricate the products with whipped yolk.
    
17. Bake by setting the upper and lower heating mode;
18. The first 10 minutes should be a temperature of 200 ° C, the remaining 12 minutes at t 190 ° C.

Puff pastry croissants: a recipe with a ready-to-cook semi-finished product

Of course, to bake a French bun according to the previous method, only courageous chefs would like to. And when guests are on the doorstep, you will be helped out by the quick option described below.

To begin with, defrost the puff cake mix. Both layers visually divide into 3 identical parts, and then cut. Go through each rectangle with a sharp knife in the direction from the upper right corner to the lower left. The result should be the same triangles. You can put a little filling in the center. After roll croissants from puff pastry. Grease with an egg and send to bake for 10-15 minutes at 200 ^o C.

8 secrets of a perfect croissant

A member of the French Culinary Association Laurent Bourcet is a generous man. Therefore, he is happy to share the secrets of cooking one of the country's gastronomic symbols:

1. Do not knead the dough too actively. Excess oxygen can damage the texture.
2. It is necessary to put a small amount of leaven. Flour cake mix should rise slowly.
3. The oil content for the croissant from puff pastry is not lower than 84%.
4. Knead to carry out at t 16 ^about C.
5. Proofing occurs at a temperature of 25 ^about C.
6. Both butter and dough must have the same consistency and t before the mix.
7. When rolling the semi-finished product should be rotated 90 °.
8. The thickness of the layer when cutting products is 2.5-3 mm.

Is it worth recalling that in the classic French croissant there is no and never had a filling. However, in the last 10-15 years, traditions have changed a bit. Even well-known confectioners "sin" and add additional ingredients to baking.

About the fillings in the end

As an additive, you can use:

• cottage cheese;
• cheese;
• chocolate;
• jam;
• jam; jam;
• berries, fruits;
• meat products;
• nuts.
  

As for the quantity: croissants do not fill with the filling like a pie. Sweet is added quite a bit (1 dessert spoon), otherwise it will leak under the influence of high temperatures.

Before baking, you can sprinkle the surface with nuts or sesame seeds, and after that, decorate with cocoa powder, powdered sugar, or cover with chocolate icing.