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Croissants and pains au chocolat, I could eat them everyday for breakfast! These buttery flakey delights are especially irresistible when they are fresh out of the oven, so imagine how many of them I downed during our week of viennoiserie classes…oh boy, just think of the calories. Croissants and pains au chocolat are made of a layered yeast-leavened dough, similar to the feuilletage procedure for puff pastry (read: copious amount of butter). To form croissants, start by rolling out and cutting the dough into long triangles as pictured below.
Roll ’em up.
Egg wash and let rise for about two hours at 25C.
Egg wash again and bake!
Depending on how well the dough is rolled out and shaped, the croissant can be denser (right) or fluffier (left).
Pain au chocolat is made with the same dough, but cut into rectangles rather than triangles.
Roll up with two pieces of chocolate sticks.
Egg wash and let rise for about two hours in 25C. If the temperature is too high, it will melt the butter (as shown below) and the pain au chocolat will not be as tasty since part of the butter is lost.
Egg wash again and bake.
Danish, a pastry of Viennese origin but now a specialty of Denmark and neighboring Scandinavian countries, has a dough that is similar to that of croissants, but with the addition of eggs. One can have a lot of fun with the different shape and topping combinations when it comes to danishes…
This is what each of us ended up with by the end of class. Yup, there’s no need to worry about breakfast for a while.
Grading time.
Next up: pâte à choux! Think cream puffs, profiteroles, croquembouches, éclairs…