Croissant (Laminated Pastry)

Name: Croissant (Laminated Pastry)
Prep time: 3 h
Cook time: 18 min
Total time: 3 h 18 min
Yield: 8 servings
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 250 g Bread flour; 250 g All-purpose flour; 140 ml Milk; 140 ml Water; 55 g Sugar; 11 g Salt; 10 g Instant dry yeast; 280 g Unsalted butter; 1 each Egg wash

France's emblematic laminated pastry — shatteringly crisp on the outside, honeycomb-airy within. This viennoiserie takes time and patience, but a freshly baked one is worth every fold.

Ingredients

8servings

Bread flour · or mix 250g + 250g all-purpose250 g
All-purpose flour250 g
Milk · lukewarm140 ml
Water · lukewarm140 ml
Sugar55 g
Salt11 g
Instant dry yeast10 g
Butter block (for lamination)
Unsalted butter · cold, good quality, to fold in280 g
Finish
Egg wash · yolk + a splash of milk1 each

Steps

Make a smooth dough (détrempe) from the flours, sugar, salt, yeast, and lukewarm milk + water. Round it and chill 1 hour.
⏲ 60 min
Pound and roll the cold butter between parchment into an ~18x18cm square block; keep it cold.
⏲ 10 min
Roll the dough to twice the butter block's size, enclose the butter, and seal the edges.
⏲ 5 min
Give it a letter (3-fold), then rest 30-40 min in the fridge — repeat 3 times total, rotating 90° each roll. Keep everything cold so the butter doesn't leak or melt!
⏲ 40 min
Roll the final dough to 3-4mm, cut long triangles, and roll each up tightly from the base into the croissant shape.
⏲ 15 min
Proof on a tray at 26-28C (78-82F) for 1.5-2 hours until doubled and jiggly.
⏲ 100 min
Brush with egg wash and bake at 200C (400F) for 15-18 min until deep golden.
⏲ 17 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Lamination is multiplication. Three letter folds give 3 x 3 x 3 = 27 butter layers, and more than fifty sheets once the dough between them is counted. It is the same arithmetic this site does with noodles in Lanzhou lamian and with sugar in yeot and pişmaniye — except that those double at each fold and this one triples.
Why butter rather than oil: butter is about 15 percent water. In the oven that water turns to steam and forces the layers apart, and the fat left behind fries the dough. Shaobing separates its layers with a paste of flour and oil, which has no water in it at all — so its layers come apart without being lifted. That is exactly where two kinds of lamination diverge.
And a laminated dough that is also yeasted is unusual. The pâte feuilletée in mille-feuille has no yeast and rises on steam alone; sfogliatella laminates with lard and stands its layers perpendicular to the surface. A croissant is pushed up by steam and yeast together.
Pain au chocolat: rectangles with chocolate batons instead of triangles (pain au chocolat).
Almond croissant: fill day-old croissants with frangipane, top with flaked almonds and re-bake.
Ham and cheese: split a baked croissant, add ham and cheese, and warm it through.

Tips

Temperature is everything — match the butter's firmness to the dough and keep both cold. Melted butter kills the layers.
Rest well between folds to relax the gluten so the dough will not tear.
Use minimal dusting flour and brush off the excess at each fold.
Proof below butter's melting point (under 28°C) — too warm and the butter weeps out.
Roll so the cut layers face out; that is what blooms into the honeycomb crumb.
Matching firmness is not the same as matching temperature. Butter harder than the dough shatters into shards as you roll and the layers break; butter softer than the dough is pushed into it and the layers disappear. What you need is equal plasticity, not equal degrees.
28°C is the ceiling because that is where butterfat starts to melt. Proof above it and the butter is absorbed into the dough, and what comes out of the oven is closer to a layerless brioche.
Dusting flour left between the layers stops them sticking and turns that spot crumbly. The problem is not flour between dough and butter but flour between dough and dough.