Hand Laminated Croissants with Levain and Poolish
YIELDS: 12 Croissants
Total Time: 24 hours | Bake time: 15 minutes | Skill Level: Intermediate / Advanced
Although croissants can seem daunting, the rewards are well worth the effort. There are two key things to keep in mind: First, is quality ingredients. Try to find 84%BF butter, as lower butterfat butter contains more water and will not create the same defined layers. Try using a good, all-purpose flour. Bread flour will create too strong of a dough and make rolling it out by hand difficult without overworking it. Second, is temperature control. The dough and butter need to be kept at the same consistency – cold but pliable. If they’re too cold, the butter layers will crack; if they’re too warm, the butter will be absorbed into the dough. Keep the room as cool as possible to extend your working time. To facilitate hand rolling, this recipe uses poolish, and also minimizes the bulk ferment (first rise) to keep the dough from developing too much strength. If you find the dough too hard to roll out easily, return it to the fridge for 20 minutes before continuing. A long rolling pin (20”) which can cover the whole width of the dough will also help you roll out the dough more easily.
Poolish:
140 g Anita's Organic All Purpose Flour
140 g Room temperature water
1/8 tsp Instant yeast
Levain:
140 g Anita's Organic All Purpose Flour
140 g Water
17 g Mature sourdough culture
Final Dough:
665 g Anita's Organic All Purpose Flour
All of the poolish
All of the levain
260 g Whole milk (cold)
20 g Fine sea salt
1 Large egg (cold)
75 g Sugar
8g (2 tsp) Instant yeast
40 g Unsalted butter (soft)
1 tsp Diastatic barley malt (optional)
Butter for Roll In:
450 g Unsalted butter (82-84)
Egg Wash:
1 Egg
1 Egg yolk
2 tbsp Cream
Dash of Salt
Morning Day 1
Mix the ingredients poolish and for the levain in the morning, 8 hours before mixing the final dough, cover and leave at warm room temperature. Measure out the flour, sugar, and salt into the mixing bowl of a stand mixer.
Afternoon Day 1
Mix the yeast into the poolish. Add the remaining ingredients for the final dough to the stand mixer bowl including the poolish and levain. In a stand mixer mix on low speed (KA 2) for 4 and then increase the speed to medium (KA 4) for an additional 5 minutes until the dough pulls away from the bowl and becomes smooth.
Roll the dough into a roughly 10x16” rectangle aiming to keep the edges as square as possible.
Wrap the dough in plastic, or place in a large food safe bag, place on a cookie sheet and refrigerate over night (at least 8 hours).
Afternoon Day 2
Place the butter in between 2 silpats, sheets of thick plastic (from a food bag), or sheets of parchment (tends to rip so this is the least desirable option). Using a rolling pin pound the butter out into a rough rectangle approximately 8x6”.
Roll the butter out (still between the sheets) to approximately and 6x8” rectangle aiming to keep it an even thickness and the edges as square as possible. Peel back the top sheet and using a scraper cut the edges square and place the trimmings on top of the block in the low spots.
Place the sheet back on top and roll the block out to and 10x8” rectangle. Remove the top sheet and using the scraper square the sides and spread the trimmed butter across the block to even it out. It is very important for the block to be square an even thickness. Going over the butter with the scraper helps to make the butter more malleable.
Place the butter in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm it up a little if it has gotten very soft. Do not over chill the butter at this point. It must still be pliable.
Remove the dough from the fridge and roll into a 10x17” rectangle. Make sure the edges are very square.
Place the butter block on top of the dough in the centre so that the long edge of the dough is facing you. The dough should be the same height as the butter and slightly more than double the width.
Fold the sides of the dough over the butter so that they meet in the middle.
Roll out the dough towards the open ends to approximately 8x30” making sure to keep the dough an even thickness. Lightly flour the table and top of the dough and flip from time to time to ensure there is no sticking. It is very important to ensure the edges are square. Trim the ends back until you see an even line of butter across the dough. (save the trimmings to use later)
Brush of as much flour as you can from the dough and fold long ways folding the right side over to a approximately 2-3” from the other edge. Fold the left side in to meet the right side. Now fold the entire dough in half. This is called the first turn and you now have 4 layers of butter.
Repeat step 9, rolling towards the open edges.
Once the dough has received 2 turns, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Roll out the dough to a rectangle measuring 11-12” high and 20” wide. Trim approximately ½” from all sides with a straight edge and a sharp knife to ensure you have perfectly layered dough.
Along the length of the dough mark every 3 inches. On the opposite side start at 1.5” and mark every 3” from there. Using a straight edge and a sharp knife or large chef’s knife use the markings to cut the dough into triangles (3” at the base and 11” long).
Using your fingers roll up each triangle, spreading the base a bit as you roll to increase the overall width. Don’t keep your fingers in one place on the dough for too long or you will begin to melt the layers. Place each rolled croissant on a cookie sheet lined with a silpat or parchment with the tip underneath the roll so it doesn’t come undone during rising and baking.
Cover loosely with plastic (or place the whole tray in a large food safe bag) and allow the croissants to rise until doubled in size and jiggly when lightly shaken in a warm place (24-26C). This will take from 3-6 hours depending on the final temperature of the dough and the room temperature. Do not place them somewhere warmer than 27C as the butter may melt out from the layers.
About 30 minutes before they are ready preheat the oven to 425F.
Carefully brush with egg wash and bake on the center rack of the oven for 5 minutes, turn the oven down to 375 and continue baking until deep golden brown (another 10-15 minutes). Do not open the oven during the first 10 minutes of baking.