Croissant
Laminated, buttery French pastry, its flaky layers built by folding a block of butter into yeasted dough again and again over several days.
Vegetarian
⚠ Contains: Gluten, Dairy, Egg. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
How this varies: The crescent shape has an older ancestor in the Austrian kipferl, and a Viennese bakery is credited with introducing it to Paris in 1839 — but the croissant as we know it (laminated yeasted dough, butter folded in over repeated turns) was a French development, with the first true croissant recipe published in France in 1915; food historians consider the 'invented after a Turkish siege' origin myth almost certainly untrue.
Ingredients
- 500g bread flour
- 10g salt
- 55g sugar
- 10g instant yeast
- 300ml cold milk
- 40g butter, softened (for the dough)
- 280g cold unsalted butter (for the butter block)
- 1 egg, beaten (egg wash)
Steps
- Mix the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast, then add the milk and softened butter. Knead into a smooth dough, about 8-10 minutes. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Pound the cold butter between sheets of parchment paper into a flat, even square block. Keep chilled.
- Roll the chilled dough into a rectangle roughly twice the size of the butter block. Place the butter in the center and fold the dough over it to fully enclose it.
- Roll the dough-wrapped butter out into a long rectangle, then fold it in thirds like a letter (a single fold). Wrap and rest in the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes.
- Repeat the roll-and-fold process two more times, resting the dough in the refrigerator between each fold, keeping everything cold throughout to prevent the butter from melting into the dough.
- After the final fold and rest, roll the dough out into a large, thin rectangle. Cut into long triangles.
- Roll each triangle up from the wide end to the point to form the croissant shape, then curve the ends slightly inward.
- Place on a baking sheet, brush with egg wash, and let proof in a warm spot for 2-3 hours, until visibly puffy and jiggly.
- Brush with egg wash again and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes, until deep golden brown and flaky.