bakewise

Croissants, Episode 1

/ Susie / Leave a comment

Making the Kouign Amann and the phyllo pastry pointed me towards making croissants. I have made them once (years ago), but I wanted to try again. I started by doing some research and comparing recipes and techniques from: Julia Child (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 2), Cook’s Illustrated (Jan/Feb 2012), King Arthur Baking Company (Baker’s Companion), Shirley Corriher (BakeWise), The New York Times (recipe with link to helpful video), and two versions from Joanne Chang (one from her first cookbook, Flour, and another from a later cookbook, Pastry Love). It surprised me how varied these all were. I decided to try making a hybrid version, mostly based on the King Arthur proportions and overall volume, but using the Shirley Corriher lamination method because it had the most folds. [You can click on the table below to enlarge it.]

My biggest problem with this batch came with the second turn (after the first chill). As with the Kouign Amann, the butter got too cold and when I tried to roll out the “packet”, the butter inside broke into pieces rather than spreading out. I decided to let the dough sit and warm up before proceeding, and for the 3rd through 6th letter folds I did not chill the bundle between the folds. Instead, I let the dough sit on the counter in my cool (60°F) kitchen.

I think the lamination was OK, but that broken-butter 2nd turn wasn’t pretty.

Surprisingly, only Julia Child and Joanne Chang even raise the topic of the butter possibly breaking apart and how to avoid that. It seems to me that, given this and my previous experience with the Kouign Amann, this is a common problem. Or, is my fridge colder than most?

Anyway, the result was still wonderful. I ended up with a big pile of crispy, flaky, buttery croissants, and though my math says that each one was about 300 calories, I ate lots of them! I did freeze eight of them before the final proof, which worked well. The frozen ones just have to thaw and then rise, which means sitting out overnight (“Just like the Trader Joe’s croissants”, as Christine pointed out!), then bake them as with the others.

This experience made me want to make more croissants. Stay tuned!

[Yes, this is evidence that up to the posts in early December 2021, this blog was written far after-the-fact. I mean, during World War I, nobody referred to it as “World War I”, right?]

Thanksgiving in Wisconsin

/ Susie / Leave a comment

For complicated reasons, I drove out to Wisconsin and spent several weeks with mom, Jennifer, Michael, and Mac, despite Wisconsin being in a covid surge at that time. It was meaningful to be there with them, and I spent much of my time there sewing and baking. Here are the two pies I made: my classic apple pie and Joanne Chang’s Rich Chocolate Cream Pie.

A few thoughts on these pies:

  • I have a consistent issue with my apple pies where the level of the apples sinks after the top crust has set, causing a big gap between the fruit and the top crust. You can see that in the photo. Even with macerating the apples in sugar for 30 minutes, it’s not enough to solve this issue. Next attempt will probably involve pre-cooking the apples.
  • I am very happy with my pie crust recipe, and keep returning to it despite trying several other recipes and techniques. The basic idea is that I use the New York Times all-butter crust recipe, but I use Joanne Chang’s “fraisage” technique. I did have success using Shirley Corriher’s technique of using a rolling pin to do the fraisage, but that method caused a tremendous mess in my kitchen, so I now stick with the regular fraisage by hand.
  • I seem to have been willing to make a fancy edge on the chocolate pie, perhaps because I didn’t have a fluted tart shell? I always follow the stated pâte sucrée recipe for this chocolate pie, and love it. It also appears that I made chocolate crumbs rather than curls!
  • It’s probably worth fessing up that I once made this pie and forgot to put the egg yolks and sugar into the chocolate custard filling. The resulting pudding/ganache (rather than custard) was still delicious (and one or two people preferred it!), so I now routinely cut back the number of yolks to 2 (from 4) and the sugar to 2 Tbs (from 1/3 cup). I do keep forgetting to bump up the cream and chocolate a bit to compensate for the loss in volume, but it’s not a big deal.