Croissant!

Several days ago, Jessica and I took a cooking class at la cuisine paris. We were determined to learn how to make the genuine article - those flaky oh so good pastries that melt in your mouth, not the ones that look like a croissant but taste like wonder bread.

la cuisine paris

The school teaches a variety of French cooking techniques and classes are conducted in English. Judi gave Jessica a gift certificate to the school for her birthday, so off we went!

Like most baking, the elapsed time from raw ingredients to finished croissants greatly exceeds the actual amount of time spent making the croissant. Therefore, some steps were done out of order and pre-prepared. That way, the six hour refrigeration and the three hours to rise could be accommodated in a three hour cooking class.

The first step to make a croissant is to make the dough from flour, sugar, butter, salt, water and yeast. Once properly mixed, the kneading began.

Once kneading was completed, the dough was rolled into a ball, refrigerated, and we were presented with balls of dough made the day before that had been refrigerated overnight. We were ready to begin the critical stage, the tourage or laminating. This involves rolling a little over a stick of high quality unsalted butter into a thin sheet nearly the size of a sheet of looseleaf paper. The dough is rolled into a slightly larger sheet and the butter is placed on the dough. A series of folds and rolls ensues until there are in theory, 60 layers of dough and butter within a rectangle about the size and thickness of a mouse pad.

The sheet is cut into long triangles. The dough triangles are rolled into croissants, and then they are allowed to rise for a couple hours - and into the oven - et voilà! - or not. When we tried it at home, we ended up with a cross between croissant and matzah (croizzah?).

It was an issue with the yeast. I think we will get it right next time - stay tuned!