Croissants and Pains Au Chocolat

I love croissants. I love all things pastries too. My husband brings me pastries on his way home from work sometimes. Sometimes I can't wait, and I want to make my own chocolate croissants aka pains au chocolat. Something flaky and buttery. Just yum.

I've never made croissants before, but I've made puff pastry before. The two doughs are very similar. The main difference is that croissant dough contains yeast, while puff pastry does not. So go ahead and make puff pastry instead. The difficulty is about the same for both. Today, I will give croissants a try!

Croissants are pretty easy to make. The ingredients are easy to find, and you probably already have them in your home. The only difficult part is the technique. Learning how to fold all those layers and keeping the dough and butter cold. Since I have made all sorts of pastries before, it has become second nature to me. I've included some pictures from my croissant adventure to help you along the way! =]

Just keep in mind, you probably won't finish in one day. It's a labor of love.

Ingredients:

Dough:
18 oz (4 cups) of all purpose flour
5 oz (1/2 cup + 2 Tbs) warm water
5 oz (1/2 cup + 2 Tbs) milk
2 oz (1/4 cup + 2 Tbs) sugar
3 Tbs butter, softened
1 Tbs + scant 1/2 tps active dry yeast
2 1/4 tps salt

Butter block:
10 oz (2 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold

Egg wash:
1 large egg
1 tps water

Directions:
1. Warm water should be between 105 to 108 degrees F. Add sugar and yeast. Let foam for 10 minutes. Discard if the yeast does not foam, and try again.
2. Add the rest of the dough ingredients. Using dough hook, mix on low for 3 minutes. Dough should come together. Scrape sides of bowl if necessary.
3. Switch mixer speed to medium, and mix for 3 more minutes.
4. Transfer dough to plastic wrap. Cover and refrigerate overnight or for 6 to 8 hours.

5. The next day, cut your butter to form a 5 x 5 inch square. I cut the sticks in half, to form slabs. Arrange the butter pieces between two pieces of parchment paper. Begin to smash the butter gently with a rolling pin. After all the butter sticks together, you can gently roll on them. Shape into a 7 1/2 inch square. Cut and shape the butter to a perfect square, putting cut edge scrapes on top of block.

6. Refrigerate while you roll the dough.
7. Roll the dough into a 10 1/2 inch square. Place the butter in the center, so the corners of the butter point at the sides of the dough (see picture).

8. Wrap the butter up, by pulling the corners of the dough over the butter. (see picture). Seal all edges. You do not want the butter escaping. Try not to trap air bubbles.

9. Light flour your rolling surface. Focus on elongating, instead of widening your dough. Roll the dough until its 8 x 24 inches.

10. Fold the dough into thirds (see picture), this is also known as the business letter fold.

11. Cover in plastic wrap, and freeze for 20 minutes. Make space in that freezer. =]

12. Repeat the rolling and folding 2 more times, for a total of 3 times. Each time, roll in the direction of the open ends (see picture).

13. After the third rolling and folding, put the dough on a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 to 8 hours. The dough needs to rest.

14.The next day, lightly flour your surface. Cut the dough in half, and put one half back in the refrigerator, covered. Look at all those layers you've made!

15. Roll out your dough to a 8 x 22 rectangle. If the dough sticks, add some flour to your surface. Trim the dough so the shape is a perfect rectangle.
16. Cut out triangles using a pizza cutter. If you want them to be uniform, use a ruler and measure out triangles.
17. Stretch each triangle a little bit to elongate it to 10 inches. Cut a tiny 1/2 inch notch in the center of the short side of each triangle (see picture).

18. Lay the croissant/triangle on your work surface, with the notched side closest to you. With one hand on each side of the notch, begin to roll the dough away from you, towards the pointed end. Bend the legs to form that croissant shape. Shape the remaining triangles.

19. Repeat with the other half dough, or make chocolate croissants.

20. Put the croissants in a draft free spot at 75 to 80 F, loosely covered in plastic wrap. Let them proof/rise. It will take about 2 hours.

2 hours later they look like this. Slightly puffier, almost double in size.

21. Preheat your oven to 425 F.
22. Beat the egg wash ingredients together with a fork. Brush the croissants with the egg wash. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, rotating halfway during baking. If it gets too dark, lower the baking temperature to 410 F. Bake until golden brown.
23. Cool on racks, and enjoy slightly warm. Yum yum.

I even stuffed chocolate in the crescent shaped croissants. I love chocolate croissants that much. I couldn't bend them into that moon shape after stuffing them with chocolate, but that's ok!

This one is not stuffed with chocolate, so I was able to shape it into a moon:

This is how it looks on the inside. Just yum.

They re-heat very well too! Just preheat the oven to 350F. And bake for 10 minutes. They will taste just as fresh and flaky!

Variations:
Chocolate croissants can also be made instead.

Roll the dough (half) to an 8 x 22 inches rectangle. Cut the rolled dough into smaller rectangles, and add a little semi-sweet chocolate or any chocolate you like, and roll up.

Proof/rise and bake the same as the traditional croissants.

2 hours later. Almost doubled in size.

Fresh out the oven:

Drizzle them with some melted chocolate!

Enjoy your labor of love! My husband ate several for dessert and breakfast after they were made. They are so yummy. 

Egg Tart (Dan Tat)

My search for the perfect egg custard tart, or dan tat, has come to an end. I've been testing recipes for over a year. I've been playing with different recipes, and tweaking ones I thought were good. I have now come to a conclusion.

This recipe for egg tarts is exactly like the ones at a good dim sum place. It's flaky like puff pastry but still buttery and crumbly like shortcrust pastries. It's what a good egg tart should be.

I tried 3 different recipes in the same day. Not caring about the way they looked by the third recipe, I stuffed them into the egg tart tin/mold and baked away. Unknowingly, that last recipe was everything I ever wanted in a recipe.

So these egg tarts aren't as pretty as they can be, but they taste so delicious. I will have to make these again, paying extra attention to making them pretty next time for you.

You can see all those layers that make it so flaky and crumbly. They hold their shape when you bite into them. It's perfect.

Most of the recipe is by weight, instead of volume measurements. I recommend you go invest in a food scale. It's a very handy kitchen tool. I use mines many times a week. Without further a due, here is the recipe:

Water Dough:
250 g all-purpose flour
1/2 egg, beaten
25 g sugar
13 g shortening
75 g cold water

Oil Dough:
150 g cold butter
250 g shortening
200 g all-purpose flour

Egg Filling:
80 g sugar
280 ml cold water
4 large eggs
80 ml half and half

1. Make oil dough first. Put flour in a large mixing bowl. Add in butter, and cut using a pastry cutter. Then add shortening. Use a pastry cutter to combine into a dough.
2. Place in plastic wrap and freeze until firm. Mine takes about an hour.
3. For water dough: Put flour in a large bowl. Add in egg, sugar, and shortening. Mix. Add in cold water. Mix until a dough forms. Do not over mix.
4. Place in plastic wrap and freeze until firm.
5. After doughs are firm. Preheat oven to 350F. Make egg filling.
6. For egg filling: Boil water with sugar, until sugar dissolves. Let cool.
7. Mix eggs with half & half using a fork. Try not to add bubbles.
8. After sugar cools, add to egg mixture. Sieve mixture twice. Cover and keep in fridge until ready.
9. Roll out the oil dough into a rectangle.
10. Roll out the water dough into a rectangle that is twice as long as the oil.
11. Put the oil dough in the center of the water dough. Fold up both ends of the water dough to meet in the center, covering the oil dough completely.
12. Roll out flat. Fold into quarters. Freeze 20 minutes. Repeat twice.
13. Roll out flat and thin, then cut dough using a round cookie cutter a little bigger than the tart tin's diameter.
14. Place each circle into the tart tin (mines were 2 inches in diameter on top), and press into mold. Repeat with all of dough and mold.
15. Place molds on a baking sheet. Pour egg mixture into prepared mold until 4/5 full.
16. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden. Do not let the centers bubble up or form spheres. Your oven is too hot if it does.

You will love these, I promise.

Palmiers

I wanted to make palmiers ever since I tasted one when I was a child. I never knew the name of this sweet flaky dessert, so I was never able to look up a recipe. Today, I saw a palmier recipe posted on a food site, I immediately clicked it and started baking. I altered the recipe a little bit to fit my taste. This was a very simple and easy dessert to make! =]

Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups granulated sugar

2 sheets puff pastry, defrosted 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Pour 1 cup of the sugar on a flat surface such as wooden board or marble. Unfold each sheet of puff pastry onto the sugar and pour 1/2 cup of the sugar mixture on top, spreading it evenly on the puff pastry. This is not about sprinkling, it's about an even covering of sugar. With a rolling pin, roll the dough until it's 13 by 13-inches square and the sugar is pressed into the puff pastry on top and bottom. Fold the sides of the square towards the center so they go halfway to the middle.

Fold them again so the two folds meet exactly at the middle of the dough.

Then fold 1 half over the other half as though closing a book.You will have 6 layers.

Slice the dough into 3/8-inch slices and place the slices, cut side up, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Place the second sheet of pastry on the sugared board, sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, and continue as above. (There will be quite a bit of sugar left over on the board.) Slice and arrange on baking sheets lined with parchment.

Bake the cookies for 6 minutes until caramelized and brown on the bottom, then turn with a spatula and bake another 3 to 5 minutes, until caramelized on the other side. Transfer to a baking rack to cool.

Almond Puff Pastry

I love puff pastries! Whether its chocolate croissants or herbed chicken in puff pastry, I love them all. I can't help but enjoy all the flaky layers. I decided to make a simple and easy almond puff pastry. Almond slices and sugar are sprinkled on top of the puff pastries before baking.

I made the puff pastry dough, but you can always use store bought puff pastry sheets. The results are the same, although homemade puff pastry dough always taste better to me! =]

Recipe:

The puff pastry dough recipe can be found here! CLICK ME!!!

Ingredients:

puff pastry dough or store bought puff pastry sheets
1 egg beaten
4 Tbsp granulated sugar
Almond slices

Directions:
1. Roll out pastry in between 2 sheets of parchment paper to thickness of 5mm. I used enough dough to get a 9" by 9" square. You can use more or less to make smaller or bigger squares depending on how much you want to make.
2. Mix beaten egg with 2 Tbsp of sugar.
3. Peel upper sheet of parchment paper and spread egg mixture evenly on top of pastry.
4. Sprinkle almond slices all over pastry.
5. Replace top sheet of parchment paper and lightly roll to press almonds onto pastry.
6. Remove upper parchment paper and sprinkle remaining sugar over almonds.
7. Put pastry into the freezer for half an hour to set the topping.
8. Preheat oven to 400F.
9. Cut pastry into 4 pieces or smaller depending on how cute you want them to look. ( I cut it to 4 squares, but you can make about 20 little logs too ) Place them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. No need to grease baking sheet.
10. Bake for 15 mins on 400F or until flaky and golden.

Puff Pastry Dough

I love puff pastries! All those flaky layers!!! I love making the dough with this quick recipe. I believe homemade puff pastry dough tastes better than the store bought puff pastry sheets. Give it a try!

Puff Pastry Dough:

3 cups (15 oz) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon ice water
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Add the flour, sugar and salt to the bowl of a large food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add about one quarter of the the butter cubes and process until the pieces of butter are dime-sized, about four 1-second pulses. Add the rest of the butter to the bowl of the food processor and process just to coat the butter cubes with flour, about two 1-second pulses.

Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.  Combine the ice water and lemon juice in a small bowl. Add about half of the liquid to the dough mixture and toss just until combined. Continue to add the liquid, a little at a time, until the dough will clump together in your hand if squeezed.

Turn the dough onto a work surface - it will be dry and shaggy, so don't be worried.  Mine still had some very large pieces of butter as well. Now, you want to fraisage the dough.  It might sound complicated but it just means that you take a small portion of the dough and, using the heel of your hand, push and drag the dough forward using a short, brisk motion. After I performed the fraisage on that portion, I found it easiest to use my bench scraper to lift the dough from my work surface.  I transferred it to the end of the board I was working on, and grabbed the next section of dough from my parchment paper.  You want to repeat this process with all of the dough. When you've finished, gather the dough into a ball.  Repeat the fraisage process a second time.

After you fraisage a second time, shape your dough into a rectangle measuring roughly 8x4 inches.  Wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for an hour. Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface and roll it into a 15x10-inch rectangle. Fold the dough lengthwise into thirds, like a letter. Turn the dough so a narrow end is facing you.  Loosely roll up the dough starting from that narrow end and moving all the way down the length of the dough. Press the dough into a rectangle measuring 6x5-inches.

Repeat the process of rolling the dough into a 10x15-rectangle, folding it into thirds, rolling it up starting at a narrow end and forming into a 6x5-inch rectangle.  If at any time the dough becomes too sticky or soft to work with, you can cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate briefly. When you've finished the process of rolling and folding for a second time, you've successfully made puff pastry!  You do want to wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour before using it.  You can keep the dough in the fridge for 2 days or, pop it in the freezer for up to a month.