Rosie Makes Croissant Dough For Orange Morning Buns.

 

I recently came across a recipe
 for Orange and Cinnamon Morning Buns

from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco

and I knew I'd have to try these.

These aren't just regular cinnamon rolls.

They're made with a croissant dough

which is light, flaky, and buttery

rather than a chewier, more bread-like dough.

It's been a while since I've made

 pâte à croissants or pâte levée feuilletée,

but I'm up to the challenge.

First, I prepared the starter.

Starter:

3/4 cup non-fat milk

1 TB active dry yeast

1 1/3 cup flour

In a small sauce pan, warm the milk

just enough to take the chill off - 90°.

Pour milk in a mixing bowl,

sprinkle the yeast over the milk,

and stir to dissolve.

Add the flour, mixing until a smooth batter forms.

Cover the bowl with cheesecloth

and let the mixture rise until almost double in volume.

I let mine sit in the refrigerator overnight

and took it out the next morning to continue.

Sprinkle the yeast over the warmed milk.

Stir to dissolve.

Stir in flour.

Stir until smooth.

Cover with cheesecloth and let rise until doubled,

about 2-3 hours.

This has doubled and I'm going to cover it with plastic

and stick it in the refrigerator for overnight.

The next morning,

I'm ready to start on the dough.

Dough

1 TB + 1 tsp active dry yeast
1 3/4 cup whole milk
(I used 1/2 no-fat and 1/2 heavy cream.)
6 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 TB + 1 tsp salt
1 TB unsalted butter, melted
Starter mixture

Transfer the starter mixture and yeast
to the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.
Mix on low speed until yeast in incorporated in the starter batter,
1-2 minutes.
When the mixture has come together
into an even, well-mixed mass,
increase the speed to medium
and mix for a couple of minutes.
Slowly add half of the milk
and continue to mix until the milk is fully incorporated.

Reduce speed to low.
Add flour, sugar, salt, melted butter,
and the rest of the milk.
Mix until the mass comes together
in a loose dough, about 3 minutes.
Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest
for 15-20 minutes.

Turn mixer on to low speed
and mix until dough is smooth and elastic,
no more than 4 minutes.
Cover with cheesecloth and let
the dough rise until volume increases by half,
about 2 hours.

Lightly flour your work surface.

Transfer dough to the floured surface

and press into a rectangle 2 inches thick.

Wrap in plastic and chill for 4-6 hours.

I left this in the fridge overnight.

This is the starter.

If you notice on the bowl,

I put a piece of tape to show where the dough started.

You want it to double.

Add in rest of ingredients and mix.

This went into another bowl to rise.

Cover with cheesecloth.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface.

Flatten into a two-inch thick rectangle.

Wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight.

Now I'm on Day 3.

And the fun part starts - the lamination of the dough

and the rolling and folding.

Oh the rolling and folding.

The way the pastry is rolled and folded
gives you distinct layers of dough and butter
which is what gives the pastry its puffiness.
When the dough is baked,
the butter layer expands and separates the dough layers,
creating a flaky product.

Resting and refrigeration are also essential in the process.

Resting the dough helps relax the gluten,

making the dough easier to roll out.

Refrigeration maintains the pastry and butter

at a certain temperature.

If the butter is too warm,

it will ooze out between the layers,

resulting in a mess and a pastry that won't rise.

If the butter is too cold, 

it can break through the pastry layers.

Be sure you keep your surfaces lightly floured,
else the dough will stick and you'll have a buttery mess.

Start with 2 3/4 cups of butter  (22 ounces).

This is the lamination part.

About an hour before you're ready to laminate the dough,

put the butter into the bowl of a mixer

fitted with the paddle attachment.

Mix on medium speed until malleable,

but not warm or soft - about 3 minutes.

Remove butter from bowl,
form into a rectangle,

wrap in plastic,

and refrigerate to chill but not resolidify.

I mixed the cold butter over medium speed until workable.

Wrap in plastic and refrigerate.

Lightly flour your work surface.

Set the pastry dough on the work surface.

Adding flour as needed,

roll into a rectangle 12 x 28 inches.

Place rectangle of butter on left side of dough.

Spread butter over 2/3 of the rectangle.

Fold the uncovered right-hand third over the butter,

then fold the left-hand third over the center.

Press the seams on top and bottom to seal.

 Second turn: 

 Give the dough a quarter turn and flour.

Roll out again into a 28 x 12 inch rectangle and ...

...   fold again in the same manner.

Wrap in plastic wrap
and refrigerate for about 2 hours to relax the gluten.

Third turn:


Dust work surface with flour,
and again roll the dough into a 28 x 12 rectangle.
Fold into thirds
and you should have a piece of dough measuring about 9 x 12
and 1 1/2 - 2 inches thick.
Wrap in plastic and chill in freezer for an hour.

Now we're ready to make the Morning Buns.

Croissant Dough
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
zest of 2 oranges
2 TB cinnamon
pinch salt
1 stick butter, melted

Roll the dough into a 1/4-inch thick, 6 x 18 inch rectangle.

Brush dough with melted butter.
I went for 1/4 inch thick
but ended up with a 12 x 18 rectangle.
Hmmm.
I'm thinking the thickness of the dough
is more important than the dimensions.
Hope the dough is thinking this as well.

Mix the sugars, cinnamon, orange zest, and salt.

Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mixture over buttered croissant dough.

And roll it up.

Slice into 1 1/2-inch thick pieces.
The recipe said to prepare a 12-muffin tin
by brushing bottom and sides with melted butter
and putting a teaspoon of sugar in each muffin cup.
This isn't working for me.
My buns are too big.
Like I said, I ended up with 12 x 18, not 6 x 18.

Soooo,
I buttered and sugared a 9 x 13 inch pan and 2 ramekins.

Ooooh.
Lookie.
Layers!

Let rise again.
 Heat oven to 375°
and bake about 45 minutes.
The ramekins were done in 45 minutes.
I tented and baked the 9 x 13 pan 15 more minutes.

 

 My kitchen smells amazing.

Cinnamony, orangey, yeasty goodness.

 Lots of flaky, buttery layers.
I had three turns of the dough,
so that would be 27 layers.

Another winner.

I had to hide these in the freezer
since I wanted to save some
for the other two Hawthornelets
 when they come home for Thanksgiving.

I'll try the croissant dough again

and actually make croissants.

I need a little more practice and experience here,

especially in the rolling and folding parts

so I'll do a little more research.

What would I do differently next time?

After rolling the dough into a free-form rectangle,

I would cut it to 28 x 12 inches exactly,

so everything would fold up neatly and evenly.

Oooooh...

I'm already anticipating breakfast croissants.

Orange Marmalade Croissant

Scrambled Eggs and Bacon with Scallions Croissant

Rosie Tries Her Hand At Croissants.

Yesterday, I started on croissant dough. The recipe came from Baking With Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan. Contrary to popular belief, the croissant was not invented by the French, those cheese-eating surrender monkeys, who claim culinary superiority over the universe. Le croissant was created in Vienna, Austria, - the city of canals - in 1686, by a courageous baker during the time the city was being attacked by the Turks. The baker, working late one night, heard a rumbling noise and alerted the military leaders in Vienna. It was discovered that the Turks were trying to get into the city by tunneling under walls of the city. The tunnel was destroyed and the baker became a hero. All he wanted for his reward was the right to create a commemorative pastry. He made the pastry in the shape of a crescent, mirroring the crescent on the Ottoman flag.

My mise en place: 1 ounce compressed (fresh) yeast 3 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour 1/3 cup sugar 2 teaspoons salt 1 cup whole milk Except NOT.

I have no access to compressed fresh yeast. So I substituted packets of active dry yeast. I had no whole milk. So I substituted heavy cream. I had no unbleached flour. So I substituted bleached flour. All in all, I kinda Semi-Ho'd this recipe, since Sandra always says, "Use whatever you have."

I got to use my Christmas scales for the first time to measure out 1 ounce of yeast, which turned out to be 4 of those little packages of yeast, which I think is a whole lotta yeast.

I put the yeast, flour, sugar, salt, and one cup cream into my KitchenAid fitted with the dough hook.

I mixed for about 2 minutes on low speed, until a soft, moist dough formed on the hook. If you need to, add more milk, one tablespoon at a time. Next, I set the mixer to to its highest speed and worked the dough until it was smooth, elastic, and no longer sticky. About 4 minutes.

I removed the dough, wrapped it in plastic, put it in a plastic bag, left it at room temperature for 30 minutes to give the gluten time to relax, then refrigerated it overnight. Fast forward to this morning. Next, the buttah.

4 1/2 sticks of cold, unsalted butter cut into 1/2-inch cubes 2 TB unbleached all-purpose flour (Again, I have no unbleached flour.)

I beat the butter and flour on the highest speed, using the paddle attachment, until smooth - about 2 minutes.

I scraped the butter onto a large piece of plastic wrap and molded it into an oval 5-6 inches long and 1 inch thick. Refrigerate the butter while you work with the dough.

I placed the dough on a generously floured work surface My cold granite counter tops are perfect for this.

And rolled it out into an oval approximately 17 inches long and 10 inches wide.

Centered the butter oval on top.

And folded the top and bottom of the dough over the butter to make a tidy package.

I pressed the edges to make a neatly sealed rectangle. Using a rolling pin, I struck the dough to distribute the butter evenly, hence my very own whack-a-dough. Take THAT, Sandra Lee! After pounding, you should have a 1-inch thick rectangle about 14 inches long and 6 inches wide.

Keeping your work surface and the dough well-floured, roll out the dough into a rectangle 24-26 inches long and 14 inches wide.

Working from the left and right sides, fold the dough in thirds, so that you have a package that's 8 inches wide by 14 inches long. Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet, cover the dough with plastic, and refrigerate for 2 hours. The dough needs two more turns. For the second turn, place the dough so the 14 inch side runs left to right. (You've given the dough a quarter turn.) Keeping your work surface well floured, roll the dough as before into a rectangle 24-26 inches long by 14 inches wide. Again fold the dough in thirds, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 2 hours. For the third turn, again start with the 14 inch side running from left to right. Roll into a rectangle 24-26 inches long by 14 inches wide.

Now, instead of folding into thirds, as I did the two previous times, I folded the left and right sides of the dough into the center, leaving a little space in the center. Then I folded one side over the other, as though closing a book.

According to the directions, "This is the famous double turn, also known as 'the wallet.' " Heh ... I'm sure all you TWoPer's out there will get a kick out of that.

And here's my "wallet."

After refrigerating the dough for another 2 hours, I positioned my "wallet" with the spine on the left and the opening on the right. I cut it in half, and froze one half and used the other for my croissants.

Keeping the surface and the dough well- floured, I rolled it into a rectangle 20 - 24 inches long and 15 - 18 inches wide.

Next, I cut it into rectangles.

And more rectangles. Save the scraps since you will use these when you roll up the croissant.

To shape the croissants, I rolled the triangles out until they were twice their original length. Then I used a little of the scrap dough, molded it into a football shape, and centered it on the wide top part of the triangle.

Then I simply rolled the dough towards me.

I turned the ends down and in toward the center to produce the classic crescent shape.

Set on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Brush with an egg wash - one large egg mixed with one tablespoon of water. Let rise in warm place for 3-4 hours until tripled in size.

Now, after all this work, this is where I screwed up. Whenever you're making a pastry with all the layers of butter and dough, it is essential to maintain the integrity of your butter and dough. Sadly, I did not. I slightly warmed my oven before putting in my croissants to rise. Apparently, my oven was too warm.

Damn it. The butter melted out. I knew I'd screwed up when I saw that. I went ahead, brushed the egg glaze on again and baked.

350 for 16 - 18 minutes until nicely bronzed. And here are my pitiful, deflated croissants. My bad. Cool on racks. Croissants should not be eaten as soon as they come out of the oven. The dough and layers need time to rest. Not to worry though. I have the other half of dough in my fridge and will make another batch, perhaps tomorrow. I also wanted to try the Almond Filled Croissant recipe, which, luckily, I forgot to try on this batch. Again, perhaps tomorrow. So, I give you my crappy croissants. The taste was buttery and yeasty, and the texture light and flaky. And these were the crapped-up croissants.

I can't wait until I make these properly.