Go to the Article: All About Laminated Doughs
The original recipe worked very well for me... Maybe it was a personal flaw or maybe air humidity differences.
what about if i use 4 kg of flour how the measurement would be
I have a question, not exactly Croissant but close has anyone tried Frenagel yet, as it is a Croissant/Brioche hybrid Bagel.
Hello. Is the dough to be “fridged” after the 1 hour proofing? Or after having it oval ? Thank you
*DO NOT USE THIS RECIPE* The dough will result in a crumbly, dry mess. This recipe is a disaster, but I can help if you've already put the dough together as I just went through making it and fixing it. I fixed this recipe by comparing it to another croissant dough that I've used and had good results with. The results ended up being very good in the end.
Here's how to fix it:
Dough:
Add all of these ingredients into your crumbly, dry dough:
1. 71g whole milk (or any milk/water if you don't have whole milk handy)
2. 26g sugar
3. 3.2 g instant yeast
4. 14.4g salt
Knead until all of these ingredients come together. It may seem like the liquid doesn't want to mix in, but it will given enough kneading. Your kitchen aid will likely slosh this around with a dough hook so I recommend kneading by hand until you end up with a soft, pliable dough. You will really need to work this dough to make it come together- don't worry about it. It will be fine to roll out after resting/relaxing in the fridge for an hour. Form into a disc, cover and refrigerate.
Butter:
Quantity: 350grams (no change from ChefSteps recipe)
To make the butter block, simply use unsalted butter and press it into an 18x18cm square of even thickness using parchment paper like the kouign amann video shows (don't mix it with sugar/flour or anything else). Use European butter if you have access to it (83-84% fat content makes it far more pliable).
Tip: When actually rolling out the dough for the first time with the butter square in it, wait until the butter has warmed up to around 16-17 degrees celsius. If it's colder than that it will crumble. It needs to warm up to become pliable.
I would recommend following these directions as they are far more reliable: https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/classic-french-croissant-recipe/
You will need to adjust rolling the dough out slightly as the amount of dough produced here is a little more than in the recipe link above. I did:
Butter: 18 x18cm
Dough square: 28cm x 28cm
Dough rectangle before each of the 3 letter folds: 20cm x70cm
Final dough roll out: 20cm x 120cm
Don't worry, you can continue on making Kouign Amann with this dough. I would also highly recommend adjusting the salt for Kouign Amann from their suggested 200g Sugar / 20g Salt to around 200g Sugar / 12g Salt. I found them way too salty in the end.
Wow. So glad somebody else noticed. The ratio of flour to water is wayyy too much. Good thing I am a cook and knew as soon as I started mixing it. So of course had to start a new batch. Waiting for it to rise. Because there is no salt in the dough I will have to get creative and make something with the first batch. Maybe my laminator will work in some butter enough to make plain croissants 🙃
I created a ChefSteps account just so I could warn you that this is a totally screwed-up recipe. First, it calls for about twice as much flour as it should; that is the reason why so many people who have tried this recipe get a dry, stiff dough that is difficult to roll out and that results in a dry crumbly pastry. Second, "Step 6" is entirely missing from the directions, even though Steps 9 and 10 instruct you to "Repeat Step 6 Exactly." Third, the recipe fails to specify whether the dough should be chilled between steps 9 through 11. Fourth, Step 7 tells you to roll the dough into a rectangle that's 24 inches by 8 inches and is .5 inches thick. That is simply impossible. A 24" x 8" rectangle would be only about one-eighth inch thick. Finally, this "recipe" for croissant dough finishes by stating, "We don't have a croissant recipe (yet), but to make Kouign-Amann with this dough, click the recipe below." The linked Kouign-Amann recipe lists "1 Croissant Dough Recipe" as the first ingredient. Good luck with that! You are going to wind up with dry, crumbly pastries. Now that I've had my say, I'll try to cancel my ChefSteps account and avoid this website in the future. By the way, you might want to check out the Kouign-Amann recipe at https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/ or at https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/kouign_amann_09102.
Do not attempt to make this dough. A few months back I tried this recipe and it failed. I thought I was doing something wrong. I ended up taking a pastry arts class and we just finished croissants. They turned out great. With my new found skills, I decided to try this recipe again. A lot of what this recipe tells you to do is off from what my school showed us. Sugar and salt inside the butter block just makes the butter block tricky. It becomes very unstable and becomes warm very quickly. The dough is very dry with these exact measurements. Thought it would get better as I proofed it in the refrigerator overnight. It proofed, I degassed it and it was still very tough to work with. Laminating it was very difficult as well. Since the dough was very dry, and the butter unstable, by the third fold, the dough would break and the butter would leak out. I’m freezing it now to try and bake later, but I am not happy with this recipe. There are better recipes out there. Don’t get excited by the fancy camera work.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bao5Ordj9cs/?hl=en
Hey Scott, I’ve found a croissant/kouign recipe on grants insta, worth a try?! Pics look great. Maybe use the chefsteps vid as a guide? This recipe and I don’t get along
I hope someone knowledgeable responds to your post, Matthew, because I'm on my second attempt, and I'm having the same issue (both attempts). I thought maybe it was because I tried All Purpose flour on the first attempt, but I switched to pastry flour on the second attempt, and I'm getting the same results. After putting it through the standing mixer, the dough isn't as malleable/fluid as it appears in the video. Mine's all cracked. I put it in the fridge, hoping it'll somehow look like it does in the video overnight. I tried adding more water to it to smooth out the cracks... and it looks about the same after being in the fridge all day (still cracked). Yesterday, I tried doing the folds and turns, but I couldn't get it to roll out at all :'-( The butter block was almost as big as my sad, cracked dough.
My butter block looks great again, and I'm afraid to waste it the second time if my dough is off.
Hi chefsteps
Tried this recipe 5 times and the dough never looks as loose/wet at any point during the 10 minute knead, any advice? I’m determined to get this recipe to work. The butter starts to come through the pastry during the second turn. My dough never seems as elastic as in the video.
Thanks
Hi why are my croissants doughy and raw internally after baking they seem to do it around 10 to 12 mins into the bake
Hi what will be the ratio to active dry yeast to a natural starter yeast?
Why do you prefer pastry flour for this recipe when so many others (such as Tartine) call for bread flour? I thought the the gluten formed smaller envelopes around the butter, or does the gluten being worked this much inhibit flakiness?
@Michael Z. Cheng butter is mostly milk fat and water combined. So, the fat being folded between the layers of dough and repeated creates the separation of many layers. The water in the butter evaporates and both assists in the rise, but also provides the delicate flake of the pastry. All of these work together with the gluten and yeast to make the fluffy, flaky, soft, deliciously developed flavor of a croissant.
Does this recipe works the same under high altitude ? like 7000ft?
My best guess is to ensure that the butter remains "dry" as it merges with the dough when laminating the dough with butter. Makes sense. This is my first time to be on this site as I was researching on the techniques here on creating "Kouignan Amann. I was impressed with the way it was presented, simplified and very well done. Surely chefsteps site knows how to teach well! I tried the style from another site in Netherlands and it was excellent. I like this recipe of having to utilize a generous amount of sugar and salt when prepping to bake the pastry. You can check it out the recipe I was referring to at https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/kouign-amann-breton-pastry-with-a-hint-of-salty-caramel/
Did you pastry flour? I used AP flour the first time, and had similar results. I needed it by hand as it strained the mixer. I finally chucked the dough to the side, with the intention to bake it later as a bread, and see what I get.
What is the function of the flour in the butter block?
I have made this recipe three times and my dough has never looked like the pictures or videos. Its always twice as dry and not nearly as workable.
If one takes the advice to "let the dough rest in the fridge for 24-48 hours," is it best to do the knead step before the long rest?
Traditional puff pastry does require a butter block. "Blitz" puff dough is made not using a butter block and is easier to make.
No. Butter which contains water, is used to keep the layers separated, and the water in the butter acts like steam to puff the dough. For pain au chocolate round sticks of chocolate are wrapped in the dough.
Don't, DONT!!! add sugar to the butter block. The sugar will start to weep and make everything 100 TIMES HARDER TO COMPLETE. DONT ADD SUGAR TO THE BUTTER BLOCK. Especially for kougn amann, it is sweet enough when you roll out the dough in the sugar/salt recipe.
Pastry flour is a high-starch and low-protein flour, fallings somewhere between the (average) 8% protein content of cake flour and the 10-11% protein content of all purpose flour. It is similar to, but not the same as, cake flour. It is used in pastry and especially in laminated dough recipes where a very tender finished product is desired. Low protein flours will develop less gluten when worked. It isn't always carried by grocery stores and can be hard to find even in specialty grocers. If they have a Bob's Mills rack of baking items it is sometimes among them. I order mine from Amazon - my go-to place for anything out of the ordinary.
No salt in the dough recipe? (aside from the butter block)
I have had better luck placing the butter block on a cookie cooling rack. This creates some circulation instead of the block transferring the temperature to the surface.
This is the first recipe I have found that calls for pastry flour? Are you sure it's not all purpose? The recipes I have say all purpose on one and bread flour on the other. Could you please help me with this so I can make these. Thank you so much.
Do you have a recipe for that almond croissant shown in the video?
Made this recipe four times now. Twice I have had to chuck it because at some point in the rolling out process the dough is too damp and sticks to the rolling pin and the counter. Other than that I am getting nice layers. Is the solution more bench flour? I have been adjusting the resting times between turns from 2 hours down to 1 hour and 15 minutes. I have tried the refrigerator and the freezer for resting between turns. Any suggestions?
By the way, if there is a better raw dough out there, I have not tasted it. Wow.
You could, but it's not necessary. Making puff pastry is a much simpler process that does not require a butter block, so you might want to do that instead.
Any special instructions if I'm using cultured butter?
can i take this recipy as beef wellington's puff pastry?
You want your butter block and your dough to always be the same temperature so they won't break, so you would want to refrigerate both before encasing the block inside the dough and after each turn for 30-45 minutes
Hi, ChefSteps team! This is a reiteration, but there is a missing "Step 6" from the written instructions and it's unclear whether the dough needs to be cooled between each turn. Could you clarify, please?
Is there any way to get brown butter in the layers? Is there a way to get a caramel/ dulce de leche center like pain au chocolat?
Hi!! I see people having problem and I have made this exact recipe a dozen or so times. Mine seems to get better every try! I follow exactly and measuring precisely! I use real butter.. Not spread ... Unsalted butter. I have also started making this dough into Danishes some w fruit filling. Often I braid the dough with a fruit center and people seem to love it!! Thanks
I wish I had read all the comments before starting this recipe. But I saw the video and I was hypnotized to make it at that exact moment! It take some finessing the dough, and trial and error. Basically, all sorts of factors can change your results or wait times. The written instructions are off between steps 6 and 9, and was a little confusing. I missed the initial rolling out soon after letter-folding the butter and dough together. To compensate, I folded and rolled out an additional time. I also found that letting it chill in the fridge for 2 hours made the butter too cold, causing my butter to break in chunks in my dough instead of roll out in a thin layer, and decreased the wait to 1 hr. But that part is probably because my fridge is too cold.
I continued on with the K amann recipe, and rolled it out to the instructed 1/4" thickness. I found that if you roll it out to 14x14 you can probably get a good 16 k amanns out of it. Then again, I didn't try, but its something to consider if you want to maximize your dough. Off to K amann page I go!
@chefsteps could a pasta maker be used as a substitute for a pastry sheeter?
Took out my beautiful Kouign-Amann, waited thirty minutes, took a bite, and realized instantly that the recipe required unsalted butter. Damn...too salty. You live and you learn.
So just to clarify as the Step numbers aren't correct.
After each "turn" does the dough need to be put back in the fridge, the Kouign-Amann video depicts the dough being folded for the 2nd time and then the 3rd straight after?
Also I found the butter was way too hard after being refrigerated for 2 hours (and initially for the first hour) it had re formed in to solid lumps that basically stabbed through the dough.
The previous post buy Joe mentions the temperature should be between 67-69F (20C) however this would require me to take it out of the fridge to heat up and soften first. Is this the correct process as the recipe doesn't make this very clear and implies it can be taken straight from the fridge, which for me is 4 degrees celsius and after an hour the butter has reformed into a solid block.
I suppose its possible my dough is not cold enough and therefore not resilient enough to stay in its layer while the butter is slowly squashed to be thinner, but the butter is very hard and didn't fold nicely like it does in the video, it tore.
Any thoughts, don't feel like wasting too may blocks of butter and flour to make a good batch
