How To Make The Best Croissants At Home

What's not to love when it comes to croissants , flaky on the outside , soft and buttery on the inside .

They might just be our favorite French pastry though , easy to enjoy .

Croissants can be difficult to perfect , especially if you're making them at home .

The process takes practice and a lot of patience .

But trust us when we say it's worth it .

We tested hundreds of croissants to bring you the best classic croissant and have you bacon like a pro .

So let's get into it .

We're gonna start by making our dough .

Our dough consists of eight ingredients , milk , water , flour , sugar , salt , yeast , malt and butter in a large bowl .

Combine the milk and water .

A lot of croissant recipes call for just water .

But we found that a combination of water and whole milk creates that tender crumb .

We want the added sugar from the milk will also help us achieve that deep copper color .

Ok .

Next , we'll add the flour .

We're using bread flour because it's high in protein and one of the strongest flowers available , it's gonna help provide the structural support for our dough .

The extra protein in bread flour makes for better volume .

Chewier crumb and more browning in the crust .

Now add our sugar , salt , yeast and malt for extra flavor .

The last ingredient for our dough is unsalted butter .

Not all croissant recipes use butter in the dough , but we found that a small amount of butter fat in the dough helps during the lamination process .

We'll mix this together with our hands until the dough resembles a shaggy mass .

We don't want to develop gluten here .

We just want to hydrate the flour and create a unified dough .

Trust your instincts here .

If your dough feels too wet like this , it will be more difficult to roll out , which will cause the butter to shatter .

When laminating , you can always add a little bit more flour .

Here .

If your dough is too dry , it'll begin to tear during rolling and eventually bake into something more similar to a bread roll than a pastry .

Unfortunately , there's really no fix for this .

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and allow the dough to rest at room temperature until it rises to about 1.5 times its original size and has a slightly puffy texture .

This will probably take about an hour depending on the temperature of your kitchen .

OK .

This looks good .

We'll punch down the dough and trans it onto a piece of plastic wrap , then gently press the dough into a rough eight inch square .

There we go .

Then we'll wrap the dough tightly and refrigerate for at least three hours but preferably overnight .

Let's move on to one of the most crucial steps of croissants .

The butter block or barrage .

It's really important to use a high quality butter .

We recommend using European or European style butter because we're looking for at least 84% butter fat that's going to help give our croissants that famous honeycomb finish , make the butter block place a sheet of parchment paper on a work surface with the long side nearest to you .

Next , we'll slice the butter into quarter inch thick pieces and arrange the slices in a single layer like tiles , fold the edges of the parchment paper to encase the butter and flip the packet over .

So the seam is facing down , we'll let the butter packet rest at room temperature until it's soft but not greasy chilled .

Yet .

Pliable is what most recipes will tell you .

We essentially want the butter to be a little bendy but not break for us .

It took about 30 minutes for our butter to reach this consistency .

Then we'll take a rolling pin and roll it over the packet to distribute the butter in an even layer all the way to the edges and corners , leaving no spaces between the tiles and there you have it , place the butter packet in the refrigerator to chill until you're ready to laminate .

All right , let's laminate .

First thing we need to do is lock the butter into the dough to do this .

We want to make sure that our butter and our dough are about the same temperature and texture .

Simply hold the butter in one hand and the dough on the other hand and feel them .

We'll dust our work surface very lightly with flour .

We will use our butter block as the guide to how large we roll out our dough .

We want to roll out our dough to be about the same width and about twice the height of our butter packet .

Once the dough is rolled out , place the packet , butter side down on the bottom half of the dough , leaving about a half inch of space around the edges .

Once you have the butter in the correct spot , carefully peel back the parchment paper to release the butter .

Now fold the top half of the dough over the butter stretching it ever so gently so that the edges of the dough reaches the exposed edges beneath the butter .

Use the palm of your hand to gently press the side and bottom edges of the dough together to seal the packet closed .

Look at this , our dough looks sort of like a closed book .

So moving forward , we'll call this the spine side and this will be the page side .

We want to make sure that the butter rolls out evenly .

So we'll use our rolling pin to firmly press the dough and begin distributing the butter to release that tension from folding the dough onto itself .

We'll use a serrated knife to cut down the middle of the spine .

Now , make sure to orient the dough so that the split spine is closest to you and begin rolling .

Continue rolling until the dough is about 12 inches high , fluffing and moving the dough to make sure it doesn't stick to our work surface .

Once we have the height , we want to roll the dough until it's about a quarter inch thick .

It's time to make our first fold fold the butter third of the dough up and the top third of the dough down kind of like folding a letter .

Hence why we call this fold a letter fold .

We want to continue rolling out to about the same size rectangle we had before with a quarter inch thickness .

If your rectangle gets a little wild and has some rounded edges , you can use a serrated knife or a pastry wheel to straighten out the sides .

We want to keep as close to a perfect rectangle as possible for optimal layers .

Now , we're ready for our second and final fold .

Fold the left two of dough over itself to just pass the center of the dough , then fold the right third of the dough over itself towards the left so that the edges meet , gently press the two ends together to make a seam that resembles an offset book spine , then fold the left side of the dough over to meet the right edge of the dough .

This is called the four fold .

A lot of recipes will have you resting and folding the dough three and four times to create a crazy amount of layers and show off that iconic honeycomb structure .

However , we found that although fewer creates fewer layers , they're more distinct layers and honestly give the croissant our favorite crumb texture light with just enough chew .

Plus it's a little less labor intensive .

Our croissants are really shaping up , but actually let's get to shaping these babies .

Now we got to roll the dough out one more time and you guessed it get back down to that quarter inch thickness .

For this next part , we like to use a pastry wheel .

But you can also totally use a large chef's knife in by marking three inches and roll the wheel from the mark diagonally towards the bottom left corner , continue cutting the rest of the dough until you have about 10 to 12 triangles , make a slit in the middle of the base of each triangle to help relieve some tension and then roll them up to create that iconic crescent shape .

Make sure to roll as tight as possible without applying too much pressure so that the croissants will hold its shape as it proofs and bakes .

The French word croissant actually translates to crescent in English .

Many historical experts believe French croissants evolved from Austrian Krell , a buttery and often sweet , baked , good shaped like a crescent moon .

According to the popular legend , Krell dates back to 16 83 when a baker heard the Ottoman Turks toddling beneath Vienna to lay siege to it .

He sounded the alarm to save the city and created Krell to celebrate this victory .

Its curve shapes supposedly symbolized the crescent moon emblem on the Ottoman flag .

Kip eventually migrated to and evolved into what we now know and love as the croissant .

Before we get to baking , we have to proof our pastries .

We like to add boiling water to a small vessel like a rain and place it on the tray under the plastic wrap .

While the croissants proof moisture is key to prevent the dough from drying out .

You'll know they're ready to bake when they look like light puffy clouds , they should slightly wobble when you shake the tray .

Lastly , we'll brush them with an egg wash to give our croissants that iconic shiny copper brown shell .

And finally , it's time to bake .

We recommend placing a pan filled with boiling water at the bottom of your oven .

Steam ultimately helps the dough grow before the heat traps it in its shell .

Bake the croissants in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes .

And before we bite into these works of perfection , we want to let them cool for about 20 minutes and voila perfectly golden croissants .

We think croissants taste best when baked fresh with a smear of jam or a drizzle of honey and served with your favorite breakfast beverage .

The possibilities are really endless when it comes to using this laminated dough to make other beautiful flaky pastries .

This recipe is truly a labor of love and once you nail it , the reward is insanely sweet for this recipe and even more croissant baking tips , check out tasty dot co croissants really make the world a better place .