Croissants

Sometime in November last year I set out to learn how to make French pastries. My first challenge was chocolate eclairs which turned out to be rather hard and after 3 attempts I finally got it right. As a result, I developed a healthy respect for pastry chefs. I love croissants (I love most pastries to tell you the truth) but after reading a croissant recipe in a book my sister gave me I became a little less enthusiastic about attempting to make them. Fortunately, my enthusiasm levels took an upward trend after my Mum got me a French pastry making DVD for xmas. And so today was my first attempt at making croissants.

I didn't get started until early afternoon which was not great as temperature plays a pretty big part in the process. Making the dough was really easy, although it would have been nice to have had a mixer with a kneading instrument. Making the dough into pastry is a little involved so I'm not going to go into too much detail. The temperature was a bit of a nuisance as the pastry got sticky very quickly after removing it from the fridge. The DVD showed a number of different styles of croissants so I tried 3 of them, chocolate croissant, raisin brioche and the traditional plain croissant.

Overall, I was really quite happy with the outcome. Definitely have some improvements to make in the process. I think I could have let the dough rise a little longer the first time round. On hot days the fridge is your friend so leave the pastry in there a little longer. I also need a bit of practice cutting up the pastry and rolling the croissants. Will be taking the goodies into the office tomorrow. Hoping for a thumbs up.