Everything You Want to Know About Croissants 🥐
A Q&A + the best at home croissant recipe
hey hi hello!
Over on IG I had asked y’all for any questions you had about recipe development. Most of the questions that rolled in were in regards to croissants. Which makes sense since I had just spent 2 weeks on a croissant job. It’s clearly top of mind, so let’s talk about croissants.
Before we get into it, I will not be sharing my recipe for croissants. For a large handful of reasons. But, the biggest reason being that- my croissant recipes are developed for commercial kitchens. They’re specifically developed with a sheeter and large scale production in mind. Like I mentioned in the Toffee Cookie post- recipes from commercial kitchens do not always scale down easily for replication in a home kitchen, even though it is basically the same principle. The dough is a little stiffer, and intentionally under developed to account for the gluten development that happens as the dough goes through the rollers.
That, being said, Rachel Caygill of Greenhouse Bakery in Oakland has a fabulous hand laminated croissant course. I worked through it back in December- one of the few times you’ll ever catch me hand laminating a croissant. But, the direction was clear and the final product was- wow actually some of the best croissants I’ve ever made. Definitely worth it if you’re serious about learning about croissant making at home/by hand.
Showing off my results, I do want to remind you— I went into the course as a seasoned croissant professional. While I did follow Rachel’s recipe to a T, I still have years of experience guiding me. Croissants take time to master because they’re much more technical than mastering cookies or a cake. So, take that with a grain of salt. You’ll probably have to make a few batches before you start to feel comfortable with croissant making :)