Today we have a very special guest, my daughter Julia Williams (I hope it’s not nepotism). What is she doing on Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen? Because she works at a handful of different jobs in Chicago, and one of them is making croissants and other pastries for a chain of coffee shops there. Lots of flaky pastries! She’s been sending me pictures from work for a while, and I wanted to share them with you. (In case you’re worried, she’s quite svelte, although she will admit to eating some of the malformed pastries now and then. Baking can be hard work!)
So she, the baker with hands-on experience has explained to me how commercial croissants are made, with pictures. It’s unlikely you will ever be called on to produce croissants in numbers like these, so I won’t give you a recipe (“start with 50 pounds of butter and . . .”).
First you mix: combine the ingredients in a big mixer. The blade spins in place, and the bowl rotates around it.
Divide the dough into 3.5 kilo (just shy of 8 pounds) lumps, and put them in the proofer for an hour. [For those who don’t know what a proofer is, like me, it is an oven that controls temperature (at around 85 degrees F) and humidity (around 70%) so that your dough can rise quickly without drying out. In case you’re really curious, if a baker wants a slower rise, the dough is put in a “retarder” which is warmer than a refrigerator but cooler than a proofer.] The proofer that Julie’s bakery uses is about the size of a walk-in closet, and has a retard setting as well (goes from hot to cold in half an hour). (Aw, come on, mystery readers--don't start thinking of ways to leave a body in a proofer--which would lend itself to all sorts of good titles.)
Remove the (now-large) dough balls from the proofer. Shape them roughly, place on sheet pans, and freeze (yes, freeze). Later they will become “books,” which are sandwiched with sheets of butter, frozen again, defrosted, and then “laminated” with many folds (that is, you fold and roll again multiple times, which produces those lovely thin flaky layers in your croissant).
Once they are laminated, they are rolled out in a big sheet and cut into narrow triangles, which are rolled (pointy end out) to form the classic croissant (yes) crescent shape. Proof, egg wash, and bake.
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| Rolled and cut |
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| Proofing |
There are lots of different options. Ham and cheese croissants, for example. Chocolate croissants. Filled croissants. Or use the same dough for Danish or kouign amann (look it up).
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| How to make a lot of croissants! |
You can make puff pastry at home, if you really, really want to. The Great British Baking Show offered one recipe (and we watched the contestants struggle with it), but the ingredients were basically flour and water for the dough (Julie says the recipe she uses includes yeast and powdered milk as well), although the rolling and layering with butter is the same. Out of curiosity I checked a Julia Child recipe for Easy Puff Pastry and found she avoided the layering altogether, instead choosing to break up the butter into small chunks and roll (multiple times) from there. I can’t say I’ve tried it, but surely it must give a different result than the layered approach?
And that takes time. Make dough. Chill. Roll out butter. Fold butter and dough into a packet. Chill. Roll. Repeat a number of times, chilling or freezing between each rolling. The end product is delightful, but do you really want to do all that work?
Here’s one suggestions: grab a plane to Paris, find a café with tables on the sidewalk, and order a croissant or two to go with your coffee. And enjoy, knowing that a baker has worked hard to give you that lovely flaky pastry.
Julia Williams graduated from Smith College with a degree in comparative literature, and worked in a large independent bookstore for five years. Currently she lives in Chicago, where she both writes plays and performs with local theater groups—when she’s not producing pastries!
I’ll ask if she can respond to questions about the baking process, but she has an odd schedule (she has to start the croissants at 4:30 a.m.
I’ll ask if she can respond to questions about the baking process, but she has an odd schedule (she has to start the croissants at 4:30 a.m.
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| A few less than perfect examples that they couldn't sell. Wonder who are them? |
