Croissant and Breakfast Pastry Cooking Class in Paris

Ahh, the classic French Croissant!

Welcome to our second cooking class in Paris.

We return to La Cuisine Paris

located along the River Seine.  What a

lovely location and such fun people

to get to interact with.

Today we are learning croissants

and breakfast breads.  I think this

is one of their most popular classes

as it fills up so quickly.

Here is our wonderful bread teacher

Justin

who is teaching us croissants today

and later he taught us the boulangerie

class.  He trained in Paris at Ferrandi.

The kitchen is all set up with our bowls

and cups and dishes with ingredients

measured out.

We will be hand mixing and kneading

the bread, no Kitchenaids for this class!

You start by making a mound of flour

and using the bottom of your bowl

you make a large well in the center with

thick enough walls of flour so that your

liquids will not flow out.

The we broke fresh yeast into the

liquids in the center.  I had never used

fresh yeast before and the smell is amazing.

You slowly mix the flour around the edge into the liquids

until the liquids will no longer run out and then

using a dough scraper, scrape the remaining

flour into the wet mass and begin to knead it.

It was fun seeing beginning bread makers learn

how to knead bread.  I have been making and 

hand kneading bread since I was a little

girl at my mother's side.  My technique

was different than the teachers but it

was natural for me. 

Of course at home I always make it in 

my Kitchenaid or Bosch mixers.

Next we folded a piece of parchment 

paper into     size and then cut

the butter in half.

We next put the butter back together

into a rectangle.  He said to do this

so that you had a more even rectangle 

of butter.

I need to digress here for just a moment

as we learned that American butter has 

a lot more water pumped into it so to

make the intense tasting croissants

and breakfast breads we did, we were told

that we have to find European butter.

I have to agree as I had tried making

croissants in the past and it just tasted

like a nice crescent roll, so I will have

to scout out butter at Whole Foods or

some higher end stores and I will have

to find fresh yeast too!

Next the cold butter is folded up into our neat

parchment package

which we then gently rolled to spread the 

butter evenly out to the four corners

of our package.  

This is popped in the freezer for a 

few minutes so that it is nice and cold.

You can see in that precious picture of

Justin that the butter is super thin.  

Meanwhile we are going to take our lovely

ball of dough that has been resting

and we are going to score it.

Placing our thumbs in the center of the

scoring we will stretch it out into a square. 

That was a pretty cool trick!

The dough is then gently rolled into

an oblong about the length of our

rolling pin which was about 20 inches long.

(This was a special professional rolling

pin that is not tapered nor does it have

handles so you can use it to roll out corners

to try and make our dough oblong.)

We are constantly brushing the excess flour

off with our special croissant brush!  It was 

as soft as could be.  Of course we all wanted 

to go and buy one of these by the end of

the course.

Notice how oblong the dough is and the corners

are almost square.  

Here the butter is still in the paper and we are

testing to see if the dough is large enough.

The dough is rolled out to just about 3/4 inch

bigger than the butter on the sides and top and

1/3 longer than the butter on the bottom.

Remove the cold butter from the parchment paper.

Place the butter down on the dough and fold that 

bottom third up and over.

Then continue folding into thirds until you 

end up like this.

Flour it well and turn it lengthwise.

Roll the dough out softly, never going over the ends

and rolling out from the center in one

direction only.  You don't want to squeeze

butter out of the dough.

Then repeat the folding into thirds and

place it into the fridge for about 30 minutes.

These steps are repeated a minimum of 

3 times and up to 6 times.  The more folds

you make,  the more layers of flakes you have.

We only had time to do three folds in our 3 hour

class.

Always remember to brush off the excess

flour in between.  You want to use enough flour

so that the dough doesn't stick to the counter

but you don't want to keep any excess flour

on the dough so that it interferes with the layers.

This is called the lamination process.

Now it is time to shape.

For Croissants:

Roll dough out to shape and cut into

triangles with two equal length sides (an isosceles triangle)

 Cut a slit at the wide side.  Stretch it a little as you roll it

up from the wide end.  I have also heard to make a

small ball of dough and place it just above the slit so

that your croissants are much puffier in the center

like commercial ones.

(I measured the commerical croissants

in Paris and some of them are 9 inches

across!!)

I am definitely trying that.

Now let the dough rise until doubled.

Now we turned to other breakfast breads.

This is hubby's favorite wherever he goes

pain au chocolat.

There are two ways to make it - rolling from

both ends or just one end.  I chose rolling

from both ends.

We used these batons de chocolat which

can be ordered online.  I found some at King Arthur Flour.

He said that you need

at least 44% cacao so that the chocolate doesn't

seep out while baking.

Next we layered homemade pastry cream with 

chocolate chips or raisins and cut them into

strips or twisted them into knots.

After rising, we glazed with an egg wash and then

they were placed into a very hot

oven.  After baking a final glaze of sugar water was added 

so that the first taste in your mouth is a touch of

sugar followed by the butteriest butter!

Oh, wow, these were incredible.  We

each got to take a bag full with us.

Heaven!!

(Invest in a digital scale as the Europeans

and most bakers weigh their ingredients to be 

perfectly accurate.  He didn't even allow us to 

wash the sticky dough off of our hands as that

would change the ratio of dough to butter.  We

had to use a dough scraper and carefully

scrape of as much dough as possible.)

Croissant Dough

250 g. bread flour

5 g. or 1 tsp salt (most digital scales are not that accurate

in really small weights like 5 grams

so you can measure salt out with a spoon.)

35 g. sugar

10 g. fresh yeast (5 g. instant yeast)

120 g. warm water

25 g. (1 T.) melted butter

125 g. unsalted butter

Egg Wash

1 egg

Whisk egg until frothy.

Sugar Syrup

100 g. sugar

50 g. water

Bring the sugar and water to a boil

and then let cool.

Dough

(These are the by hand method.  I will be

using the traditional heavy duty mixer and

bread hook, but I will include his traditional

hand methods.)

Pour flour into mound on counter.  Make a large 

well in the center with the bottom of your bowl.

Pour in the warm water.  Crumble the fresh

yeast into the warm water and mix it in with

your fingers.  Then pour the sugar and melted

butter into the water.  

Begin mixing by bringing a little of the edge

of the flour well into the center with your two

fingers, continue to do so until no water can

run out and then use a dough scraper and mix

the remaining flour in until it is all incorporated

and forms a ball.  

Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, then

cover and let rest for 30 and let rest in the

fridge for at least 6 hours.

Meanwhile, taking about a 18x20inch

piece of parchment paper,

place the paper and fold it into thirds

lengthwise and then turn it and fold

the ends meeting at the center

so you end up with a nice rectangular

packet to place the butter in.

It will end up being about 6x9 inches.

The butter should be cold.  Place it

inside the paper and gently push the 

butter out to the edges making it

even.  Be careful not to roll over

the edges as you may break the 

paper open.  Place in the fridge or

freezer to harden.

Take the chilled dough out and  score

it as shown in the pictures above and pull

the center out to create a square.  Roll it into

about a 10x20 inch oblong.  Test the size to

be sure your butter will be encased in

the dough as shown in the above pictures

with 1/3 of the dough covering half of the

butter and about a 1/2 to 3/4 inch margin of

dough surrounding the butter on the other

three sides.

Dust excess flour off between all rollings

and foldings so that no excess flour will

interfere with the laminating process (the 

layers of butter between dough).

Fold up the bottom third of dough

over half the butter and then make another

fold encasing the butter.  Gently roll out

into another oblong and repeat the three

part roll.  Never roll over the edge as you

don't want to squeeze the butter out.  

Dust off flour and cover with plastic

wrap.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes.  

Repeat this process 3 - 5 times refrigerating

between each time.  

Now it is time to shape the breads.

For Croissants:

Roll the dough out into a rectangle

and shape and straighten the dough.  Cut

into an isosceles triangle (2 equal sides).

Cut a slit as shown in the photo above.  Place

a small ball of trimmings dough in the center

if desired and stretch a little as you roll the

dough up.  Place the point down.  Let rise

at room temperature until doubled.  

Brush with egg wash.

Have the oven heated to 500. 

(The high heat creates the crust.)

Create steam by spraying with a

bottle of water about 20 times into

the oven.  Then place the pan of

raised dough into the oven and

reduce heat to 350 and bake

for about 15 minutes or until golden.

Brush with sugar wash after coming

out of the oven.

For Pain au Chocolat

Roll the dough into a rectangle and then

cut into oblongs.  Place a chocolate baton

at each end and roll to center.

Brush with egg wash.

Have the oven heated to 500. 

(The high heat creates the crust.)

Create steam by spraying with a

bottle of water about 20 times into

the oven.  Then place the pan of

raised dough into the oven and

reduce heat to 350 and bake

for about 15 minutes or until golden.

Brush with sugar wash after coming

out of the oven.

For Pan Suisse - Pastry Cream Filled

We made home made pastry 

cream and then spread it on the dough

and sprinkled chocolate chips or raisins

on and folded it over and then cut into

strips or twisted them.  

Brush with egg wash.

Have the oven heated to 500. 

(The high heat creates the crust.)

Create steam by spraying with a

bottle of water about 20 times into

the oven.  Then place the pan of

raised dough into the oven and

reduce heat to 350 and bake

for about 15 minutes or until golden.

Brush with sugar wash after coming

out of the oven.

Oh, the fresh yeast and the European butter 

made these so fabulous!

Of course hubby gobbled the Pain au Chocolat

but I savored the plain butter croissant.

We walked away with a bag full of

buttery goodness that we enjoyed as we 

continued to tour Paris.  There is nothing

like peeling off layer after layer

of tender, buttery croissant!

What a treat to get to make these flakey

wonderful breads in Paris.