Croissants...

Made croissants for the first time ever. It's summer now in Sydney so sleeping tends to evade me a little bit more; hence my staying up and baking goodies. I've always avoided baking yeast-based breads (especially laminated-dough sorts of things like croissants) because they're a bit intimidating for a not-so-experienced baker like me. But I thought ah wtf it's boiling and I'm bored, might as well do something. LoL.

Here's the dough after rising. Multiple risings, mind you. Croissants do take ages to make. But seriously (I know it sounds oh so cliche) but even for noobs like me the flavour you get out of freshly baked croissants (the smell and the buttery crispness) makes it so worth it. Here's a quick summary of how to make croissants. Do bear with the jumbled nonsense; I'm kinda tired and I did sorta make up the recipe on the spot. So here's what you do:

Put 2 sachets of yeast in a large bowl with about a cup of lukewarm water and 3 tablespoons of white sugar. Mix and let it sit for 15 minutes till it develops a foamy layer (kinda like cheap coffee from a machine). Then add a pinch of salt and stir the mixture. Now for the guessy bit. Using a wooden spoon mix plain white flour into the mixture until you get a gloopy mess. Keep adding flour until it becomes a pliable dough and then knead it until it's nice and smooth. It will take ages. Don't be afraid to keep adding flour. Leave dough in a bowl and cover with a wet cloth and let rise for about an hour until double in volume. While you're waiting, get a block of butter (250g) and use a rolling pin to flatten it into a rectangle about 1-2 cm thick. Refrigerate it. Get the dough, punch out all the air and roll it into a rectangle 3 times the size of the butter. Put the butter in the middle and wrap it in dough ("laminate"). Roll out the dough and keep folding it over and over so you get heaps of layers (which makes it a fluffy bread) but make sure no butter leaks out. It will get funky so keep putting it back in fridge every now and then. Then roll it out, cut into triangles, roll into croissant shapes and let it rise for about 45 min. Bake for 12-15 minutes in a moderate oven (180-190 degrees Celsius).

I hope that made sense. If you did it correctly you should get something delicious like this! YUM. The butter will leak out like crazy, but then the dough will absorb it. Not something you'd wanna eat everyday. LOL. Also, I stuffed a few of them with chocolate. Bad boy.

Enjoy!