This Surprisingly Easy Recipe Will Transport You to a French Bakery (2024)

FAQs

Are croissants hard to make? ›

Making croissants can look simple but somehow it is very difficult as all little mistakes will show up in the final result. There is no substitute for practice and experience. Before you start we can recommend watching our croissant making video to get a general feel for the recipe.

Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). Egg wash: Whisk the egg wash ingredients together. Remove the croissants from the refrigerator. Brush each lightly with egg wash.

Egg wash: Whisk an egg with some water, then brush it over the rolled croissants, which helps to add a lovely golden and shiny look to the baked croissants.

Croissants are made of yeasted laminated dough, and F&W Food Editor Paige Grandjean's time-tested lamination technique makes a base recipe that you can use for flaky layers in many other baked goods, like Kouign-Amann, biscuits, and anything made with puff pastry, like palmier cookies.

While croissants do provide some nutritional benefits, they're also high in fats and calories. They're best enjoyed as part of a balanced diet, rather than a daily breakfast item. Pairing a croissant with fruits, lean proteins, and other nutrient-dense foods can help balance your meal.

The nutritional value of a croissant varies based on the type, but these buttery pastries are typically high in calories, fat, and carbohydrates. While this does not make croissants healthy, croissants can still be a part of a balanced meal by combining them with fruit, vegetables, nut butter, or eggs.

First and foremost, you should use European or European-style butter which consists of 83% to 84% of butterfat. It should be 68° Fahrenheit and in the consistency of cream cheese, spreadable with a spatula.

Croissants can turn out flat for a couple of reasons: The protein content in the flour was too low (see "Perfecting the dough" above) The croissants were over-proofed (they are ready to be baked before they reach double in size)

If already baked, croissants can be heated in an oven or microwave. However, if raw, such as with ready-to-bake frozen croissants, croissants should be baked in an oven before eating. Because croissants are known for their crispy and flaky texture, the oven is a great way to reheat them if they're already fully baked.

An egg wash is simply a whole egg, egg yolk, or egg white mixed with a small amount of water, milk, or cream. Often, a single beaten egg is also used; though it might be a bit trickier to brush on evenly, it will provide a luscious, dark sheen nonetheless.

Is it better to use butter or egg wash? ›

Another option is brushing with melted butter as a finishing touch. Is it better to use an egg wash or butter on your pie crust? We are Team Egg Wash (or Cream Wash). While melted butter adds more flavor than the washes, it is less effective in look; it gives a speckled appearance to pastry.

Black sesame croissant made of charcoal-infused bi-colour croissant dough, mascarpone black sesame cream, and black & white sesame tuiles 🖤✨

One of the most common products: the classic butter croissant. A lot of bakeries choose to make their croissants with pork lard. We prefer to respect the French tradition and we only use butter. It is a fluffy and crunchy croissant.

Typical of the Italian tradition, cornetto involves the use of eggs and tends to be sweet and flavored; on the contrary, the croissant has no eggs and has a fairly neutral taste, except for the characteristic hint of butter.

Croissant. Croissants are notoriously difficult to make because they require a lot of time, patience, and skill. The dough must be laminated with butter, which requires multiple rounds of rolling and folding, and then proofed and baked to achieve the flaky, buttery layers.

Nutritional Drawbacks

Croissants are made with relatively large amounts of butter, and significantly boost your saturated fat intake — each large croissant contains 14 grams of total fat, with 8 grams coming from saturated fat.

Under or over-proofing the croissants

Failing to proof your croissant dough for long enough is a common mistake that most commonly results in croissants leaking butter while baking, a tight crumb, and a flat, undeveloped flavor.

All that aside, a croissant, properly made, has a thin crisp shell surrounding a flaky buttery, multilayered, and soft interior with each layer softer than the one surrounding it.