Excuse the slight crash out, but I'm getting a bit frustrated because I'm really struggling to stop my croissants from leaking butter like crazy at the beginning of baking and ruining the lamination. Before baking, I feel like I have pretty decent lamination, and I proofed these for 5 hours at 71 degrees F (I've had issues with underproofing before, so I wanted to make sure they had adequate time). Still, though, they immediately leaked out almost all of the butter and lost their lamination while baking.
I'm using Claire Saffitz' NYT recipe for the dough and butter block
by Torn8oz
12 Comments
What temp are you baking at, what’s the fat percentage of your butter, how many folds are you giving, and what thickness are you laminating those to (hard to tell from photo angle)?
i wish i had the guts to try croissants maybe ill do it over summer break (im in high school and did not have free time for pastries) BUT my best guess as for why is either more folds or a lower/higher temp while baking but I have no skill in the pastry section of baking
If you share the fresh baked batch with others then the next batch comes out perfect.
If you keep it all to yourself then the next batch’ll be doomed
😉
That uh thumbnail was pushing the nsfw boundaries really hard
It looks like a lamination problem to me. You have some thin butter layers and some thick butter layers. If the butter layers are too thick, they’ll end up melting out instead of steaming up and absorbing into the dough.
I do a French lock-in, then a book fold, then a letter fold resulting in 25 layers. When hand laminating, it’s important to not press down very much and instead push away from you, elongating the dough instead of squishing it down.
Croissants aren’t easy. I gave up on hand laminating and invested in a dough sheeter for this very reason.
The temperature that you are final proofing at is too high. By the time it hits the oven, the butter is already too soft and it melts in the heat. I would move the croissant in fridge for final 10-15 minutes of proofing, then bake. You can def bake at higher temp than 375. Also go with at least 85% fat. I believe Vital? Brand offers 85% that is available at most grocery stores.
https://imgur.com/a/iVDXiKw
Update on how they turned out. The interior looks decent in terms of layers but definitely not the honeycomb look that I’m going for. Plus they’re heavy and make me feel like I just ate a pound of butter after eating one
The most common cause is the butter getting too warm when laminating. Kerry gold is a little more sensitive to that as well, so make sure you chill between turns.
Maybe another turn as well? I always do three with book folds
They look underproofed
When I roll out the butter, I add a little bit of flour and it helps prevent the butter from splitting throughout the entire process. When you begin your lamination, make sure both the dough itself is a cool temperature. Chilling the dough thoroughly after every fold (at least 30 mins in the fridge) is probably the most important factor. Just from the picture, your pastry is way too thick. If you’re having a difficult time rolling out the dough thinner, put it back into the fridge to rest before rolling it out again. For proofing I do the wobble test, I’d say it’s a lot more difficult to overproof than underproof. Butter leaking out during the baking process is usually a sign of under proofing. As for oven temp, get a cheap oven thermometer, a lot of the times home ovens don’t get up to set temp. I usually start at 400 then drop to 375 after 2 mins to finish off the bake.
your butter is too cold and not laminating properly. so first your butter needs to be 100% same thickness throughout otherwise it will soften differently fold differently and create an uneven pockets when baking. then when folding you should be resting your dough between rolling and in the fridge so your butter doesn’t get too soft and get mixed into the dough. but after the fridge you should let it sit a room temp for a bit because if its too cold your butter will snap when folding and leak like this. happy baking i hope it works!
This is me for every puff pastry I make.