Croissants are a staple to everyone’s diet, am I right? Have them sweet with mascarpone or jam; have them savoury with ham and cheese; have them as a classic, with nuts, or with chocolate; have your croissant whichever way you like at any time of the day.

Eating croissants are so simple, so easy, so fast, but making them on the other hand takes patience and Paula Deen’s attitude toward butter. After you make croissants, you’ll never look at butter the same way again; you may never look at croissants the same way again. But you’ll eat them anyways, because butter is everything.

I need to mentally prepare you guys on how much butter you’ll be using. I don’t think you understand. Go to the market and purchase a tub of butter. If you have any left by the end of the recipe, go ahead and spread the rest on your fresh croissants. What’s a little more gonna do?

I suggest you begin a TV series that you’ve been wanting to watch for some time while you make these. There’s a lot of waiting and the baking won’t begin until the third day. Yes, you read that correctly. Croissants take three days to make. No wonder they’re a luxury breakfast purchase.

Sometimes the simplest grocery list creates the most complicated dish.

ingredients:

– 1 cup cold milk (use whatever milk you have in the fridge – but please don’t use “healthy” alternatives. ie: almond, soy, hemp, etc.)
– 1/2 cup boiling water
– 1 TBSP active dry yeast
– 1/4 cup sugar
– 3 3/4 cup flour
– 1 TSP salt
– 1 cup + 2 TBSP frozen butter, but then leave it at room temperature for 25 minutes.

the way:

DOUGH

– in a large bowl, pour in the milk and boiling water. Stir in the yeast and sugar. Leave this mixture to sit for 5 minutes until it becomes frothy.
– add in the flour and salt and use your hands to combine.
– dust flour on a clean counter and dump out your sticky dough. Knead until all the flour is incorporated.
– take another bowl and oil the inside. Place your kneaded dough into the bowl and put it inside the fridge to rest for 1 hour.

– while your dough is resting in the fridge, take your frozen butter that’s now at room temperature, and grate it onto cling film.
– as you grate the butter, it’ll form a pyramid. Break down that pyramid and spread the butter and flatten it into a rectangle.
– fold up the film and make sure it’s nicely compacted.
– fridge for 3o minutes.
– once the butter has nearly chilled to it’s time limit, take out the chilled dough and dump it onto a lightly floured surface.
– roll the dough out into a rectangle.
– unwrap the chilled butter and place it in the centre of the dough.
– fold the dough into thirds (like a letter to be put into a envelope). seal the edges by pinching the ends together.
– rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll the dough while making rectangular indentions along the way.
– fold the dough into thirds again and wrap the dough in cling film. refrigerate for 1 hour. This completes one turn.

– remove the dough from the fridge, unwrap, complete 1 turn, rewrap in cling film and fridge for another hour.
– now, you gotta do this two more times. by the end, you’ll have completed a total of 4 turns. 
– after your last turn, cut the dough into quarters. tightly wrap each quarter in cling film and refrigerate overnight.

SHAPING

– remove one quarter of the dough from the fridge. unwrap the buddy and roll it out on a floured surface into a rectangle.
– cut the rectangle into thirds so it formed three perfect squares.
– now, cut each square diagonally, forming 6 equilateral triangles.
– take one triangular dough, pull on the corners of the shortest edge to transform your equilateral triangle into an isosceles triangle.
– cut a small slit in the middle of the base of the triangle. Stretch the base a little so the slit separates into a v.
– then with your palm, roll the dough up from the base to the tip.
– place the croissant tip side down onto a baking sheet and repeat this shaping process with all your triangles.
– when you place them onto the baking sheet, space them out a bit.

tip: if you want to have croissants at your disposal longer than a week, I recommend doubling the ingredients, and freezing your shaped croissants until you’re ready to eat them. This will save you much time in the future. Well, until you run out and have to make them again.

BAKING

at last we have reached the moment we’ve been waiting for.

– take your shaped croissants out and loosely cover them with cling film and allow them to rise in a cool place for 2-3 hours. Alternatively, you can shape them and leave them to rise in the fridge overnight.
– once you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450/220 degrees.
– brush the top of croissants with beaten egg.
– pop them into the oven and immediately drop the temperature to 400/200 degrees and bake them for 10 minutes.
– reduce the temperature again to 350/180 degrees and bake for another 10-15 minutes until your croissants look well browned and fluffy.

allow your croissants to cool on a wire rack and devour. You’ve deserved this labor-filled baking project.