Haven’t actually made these yet, but writing down the recipe in the hopes that will change soon. Seems… complicated.

Makes 14 to 16 croissants (maybe try half or ¼, though its unclear how that would affect the dimensions during lamination/shaping).

Ingredients

Poolish

  • 200 g all-purpose flour
  • 200 g water (75°F/23.9°C)
  • 3 g active dry yeast

Leaven

  • 1 tbsp mature starter
  • 220 g all-purpose flour
  • 220 g water (80°F/26.7°C)

Croissants

Baker percentages in parentheses.

  • 450 g whole milk (45%)
  • 300 g leaven (30%)
  • 400 g poolish (40%)
  • 1 kg bread flour (100%)
  • 28 g salt (2.8%)
  • 85 g sugar (8.5%)
  • 10 g active dry yeast (1%)
  • 400 g cold unsalted butter (40%)
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour (for butter)

Egg Wash

  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 1 tbsp heavy cream

Procedure

This is a multi-day affair. Make the leaven and poolish the night before. Mix at 8AM, bulk fermentation should be done by mid/late afternoon, lamination by the evening. Proof overnight, and bake the next morning.

Leaven

  1. Mix starter, flour and water in a bowl.
  2. Let ferment overnight at room temperature, it’s ready when it passes the float test (drop a bit in some water to see if it floats, if not, its a witch and you should burn it).
  3. If the leaven smells too vinegary, you can discard half, feed it 100g flour and 100g, and wait a couple of hours.

Poolish

  1. Mix flour, water, and yeast in a bowl.
  2. Let stand for 3 to 4 hours at a warm room temperature (75° to 80°F) or overnight in the refrigerator.

Mix

  1. Before mixing, remove milk from fridge and let it come to room temperature
  2. Pour milk into large mixing bowl
  3. Add the leaven and the poolish and stir to disperse.
  4. Add the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Using your hands, mix thoroughly until no bits of dry flour remain.
  5. Let the dough rest for 25 to 40 minutes.

Bulk Fermentation

  1. Fold dough onto itself and transfer to bulk fermentation container.
  2. Ferment at warm room temperature (75° to 80°F) for 1½ hours. Turn the dough every 30 minutes (4 sets of stretches and folds).
  3. Transfer the dough to a plastic bag, press to flatten it into a rectangle, and chill it in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours.

Butter Prep

  1. Cut cold butter into cubes.
  2. Pound cubes with rolling pin until they come together in a single cohesive mass. Incorporate flour as you pound. You want the butter to be the same consistency as the dough without making it too warm.
  3. Mold butter into 8”x12” rectangle, place on parchment paper and keep cool (not so chill that it becomes stiff again).

Lamination

Work quickly so the butter doesn’t warm up too much.

  1. Place dough on surface dusted with flour, and roll out a 12” x 20” rectangle oriented horizontally.
  2. Place butter in the center.
  3. Fold the right and left portions of the dough over the butter as if you are folding a letter.
  4. Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll it again into a 12” x 20” rectangle again.
  5. Repeat the letter fold, taking care to keep the edges of the rectangle even and unbroken. This is your first turn.
  6. Wrap dough in parchment paper and refrigerate for 1 hour. If you leave it too long, and the butter gets too hard, give it 15 extra minutes to warm up.
  7. Flour surface, roll out into a 12” x 20” horizontal rectangle and fold edges again similar to step 3 to complete the second turn.
  8. Refrigerate for another hour.
  9. Perform a third turn, you’ll have a 8” x 12” x 2” rectangle of dough, called a block.
  10. Wrap block in parchment paper or plastic wrap, place in the freezer, and chill for 1-2 hours. If finishing in the morning, leave in the freezer and transfer to fridge right before bed.

Shaping & Proof

  1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Roll dough into a 18” x 24” x ½” rectangle.
  3. Cut in half along the long edge, so you have two 9” x 24” rectangles.
  4. Cut each rectangle into six to eight equal-sized triangles.
  5. Roll up each triangle, beginning at the widest side.
  6. Place croissants on baking sheets, spaced at least 1½” apart.
  7. Let them rise at warm room temperate for about 2 hours. They’ll be ready to bake when they’re 50% larger, firm but puffed up. If you have the shaped croissants in the evening and want to bake in the morning, wrap the sheets loosely in plastic wrap and stick them in the fridge.

Bake

  1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
  2. Stir egg yolks and cream together in a small bowl to make the egg wash.
  3. Brush the top of each croissant with egg wash
  4. Bake until croissants are deep golden brown, about 30 minutes.