The perfect croissant

alive

I've wanted to make these for ages and finally plucked up the courage yesterday. I used an old good housekeeping recipe and fast action yeast sachet, the type you just ad to the flour. I was fairly happy with the results. A few problems, they weren't as light as I had hoped and the crust wasn't very flaky.
Has anyone else made these? If so, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Minder

Could you post the full recipe you used?

Magic Monkey

Lightness: Need to prove more before baking
Flakiness: Require more turns. Did you do single (business letter) or double (book) turns, and how many? More layers = greater flakiness

Croissants have been and still are the bane of my baking life, haven't gotten them perfect yet, but after many failed attempts, I know where I'm going wrong. There's a blog post from someone who's gone through similar disasters, and the common problems associated with them. There is no finer breakfast than a warm croissant, butter and jam with black coffee

alive

Thanks for replies.
I did the business letter style folds although I think this might be where I went wrong, didn't really grasp the importance of the folds and when the dough was sticking to the surface etc I think I might have turned the dough the wrong way..

The recipe I used is as follows (only one I could find using the sachets of yeast, what kind of yeast does everyone else use?)

7g sachet of yeast
8fl oz of tepid water
2 eggs
1lb of strong white flour
2 level tsp salt
1oz margarine
8oz unsalted butter
1/2 tsp caster sugar

1. Sift flour and salf into a large bowl and rub in margarine. Make well in the centre and pour in yeast and water. Lightly whick one egg and add to the well. Miz and then beat in the flour until the bowl is clean. Turn on to a lightly floured surface knead well for 10 mins
2. roll out the dough on a floured surface to 20x8 inches keeping edges square as possible.
3. Divide the butter into 3 (the recipe said to dot the butter onto the dough but I found it worked best to flatten the butter between 2 sheets of greasproof paper to a rectangle and chill in the fridge) Place the butter over the top two thirds of the dough but clear of the edges. Turn up the bottom one third over half of the butter and then turn the remainder. Seal the edges with a rolling pin. Turn the dough so the fold is on the right.
4. Roll out the dough to an oblong. Repeat the process with the other two portions of butter. Rest the dough in the fridge for 30 mins. Repeat three more times cover and chill 1 hour
5. Roll out the dough to 19x13 inches. Cover with a tea towel and rest for 10 mins. Trim 1/2 inch all around and divide the dough in half lengthways, then into three squares , then across into triangles. 12 triangles in all.
6. Beat the remaining egg, 1tbsp of water and sugar together for the glaze and brush over the triangles. Roll each triangle up from the long edge finishing with the tip underneath. Curve into crescents and place well apart on ungreased baking sheets allowing to spread. Cover loosely with a tea towel. Leave at room temp for 30 mins.
7. Brush with more glaze (At this stage I put 10 of the croissants in the freezer, open froze them on baking sheets and then put them in a freezer bag so I could take them out and bake individual ones in the morning. They turned out the exact same from the freezer as when I baked them fresh..)
8. Bake in the oven at 220 for 15 mins
9. Cool on wire racks.

Sorry for the very long post, thought it might be helpful if ye had a look at the recipe and saw any major differences with your recipes/any major pitfalls with my recipe.
Thanks!
ps Magic Monkey, thanks for the link to that blog, lots of inspiration!

Padington

Sorry for digging this thread but up that was a great post alive.
I'm finally going to make Croissants this weekend as per above recipe. I'll post later and let you know how it went.

Dizzyblonde

Please post in a new thread when you do, I'm closing this one because it's so old.