Buttery Croissants (Page 620)

RECIPE #925

• Date: Monday, January 19, 2009 -- 4pm
• Location: Bloomington, IN
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Dining Companions: Matty, Karen H, Dave, Terry, and Teri
  
• Recipe Rating: A
  

My special gentleman is a huge fan of croissants. I admit, it's hard not to love them, but he is just over the top crazy about them. He has been very patiently waiting for me to make these croissants from The Book, and finally a few weekends ago I got around to doing so. I started by making the croissant dough, which I wrote up in the post below, and letting it chill overnight. Then I cut the dough in half, left one half in the fridge, and rolled the other half out into a 16 by 12 inch rectangle. I then cut that in half lengthwise, and put one half of it in the fridge. With the remaining piece, I cut it crosswise into thirds, then I cut each of those smaller rectangles diagonally in half. So from that half of the half of the dough I started with, I got six triangular pieces. I gently stretched each of these triangles, holding the short side in one hand and the tip in the other. I then rolled each stretched triangle to form a croissant shape. I repeated this rolling, cutting, and shaping process with all the dough, ending up with 24 croissants, which I put on parchment-lined baking sheets. I slid each baking sheet into a garbage bag (no, not to throw them away!), which I propped up with inverted glasses to keep the bag from touching the croissants. I let the croissants rise in the garbage bags for two and a half hours.

Then came the baking. I preheated the oven to 425. Right before putting the baking sheets of croissants in the oven (without the garbage bags!) I generously sprayed the inside of the oven with a spray bottle filled with water, then quickly shut the oven door. I put the croissants in, sprayed the inside of the oven with water again, then reduced the oven temperature to 400. After 10 minutes of baking, I reduced the oven temp again -- this time to 375 -- and continued to bake them until they were golden brown.

So how were they? Well let me just say the following: My special gentleman said that these croissants were the best thing I have ever made for him. That is high praise coming from someone who has eaten more than 560 recipes that I have made from The Book, and countless other things. These croissants were EXCELLENT. They were flaky, and buttery, and delicious. Their texture was perfect. Their flavor was great. These were probably the best croissants I have ever made, and maybe even the best croissants I have ever eaten. They were that good. Croissants don't stay fresh long, so we froze all of them that we didn't eat in the first few hours they were out of the oven. We have been reheating them from the freezer and they are still excellent! It is a bit of process to make croissants, but this recipe is worth every minute of effort. Yum! Yum, yum, yum!!!

Here is the recipe.

A quick shout out to my dear friend, college roommate, and blog reader, Rachel, whose birthday is today! Happy Birthday Rach!!