Watch the butter fabrication process for Blue Door croissants
More butter is better Blue Door croissants. See the process:
A Cuyahoga Falls restaurant owner was inspired by a trip to Paris to improve his pastries.Blue Door Cafe & Bakery increased the butter in its croissants by 50% while lowering prices.A new dough divider lowered ingredient costs and increased efficiency, allowing the savings to be passed to customers.The restaurant also introduced a Parisian-style jambon beurre sandwich to its menu.
It’s a pretty great deal when a restaurant and bakery heightens the quality of its baked goods and reduces prices for customers at the same time.
That’s what Blue Door Cafe & Bakery in Cuyahoga Falls did, after owner Michael Bruno was inspired by a summer trip to France with his wife, Jenn. They spent two weeks in June in Paris and Champagne.
This was one of Bruno’s main takeaways: “I decided that our croissants were not as good as the ones I had in Paris.”
“Literally, to be in heaven, I needed a cup of coffee and a plain croissant. That is it,” Bruno said at his restaurant Sept. 11.
The first thing he did when he returned to his restaurant after his trip was increase his croissant’s butter by 50%.
“I will throw the gaunlet down and put our pastry, any of our pastries, against anything you have in Paris” now, Bruno said.
The key to offering pastry with more butter for a lower price is Blue Door’s dough divider machine. It’s used to flatten six pounds of butter at once to create butter sheets for laminated pastries, which layer sheets of dough with sheets of butter.
Blue Door’s head baker, Tina Rinehart, uses Wuthrich European-style butter, which has 83% butter fat, to fabricate four, 1½-pound sheets of butter per batch in the divider.
“This one sheet will make 16 plain croissants — 16 to 18 — and then it’ll make 14 of the specialty croissants” and 30 mini croissants, Rinehart said. “And then we save all of of our scrap from shaping and we make our cinnamon twist with it, so we don’t waste.”
The end result is that Bruno no longer has to purchase pre-fabricated, packaged butter sheets, which are more expensive than making his own. And he’s passed the savings along to customers.
“We’ve been able to cut costs across the board,” the restaurateur said of his laminated pastries.
Now, Blue Door’s plain croissant, which used to cost $5, costs $3.50. The chocolate and chocolate pistacho croissants went down from $6 to $4.50 and the almond and double almond croissants were reduced from $6 to $5. The ham and cheese croissant, which was $8, now costs $6.
In addition, danishes were lowered from $6 to $5, mini danishes went from $3 down to $2, morning buns went from $5 to $3, cinnamon twists went from $5 down to $4, sticky buns were reduced from $8 to $7 and mini sticky buns were lowered from $5 to $4.50.
Drive-thru customers buying any pastry also can get a cup of coffee or and iced tea for an additional $1.
Bread-making efficiency
The dough divider also makes bread-making easier and more efficient by dividing a large batch of dough into 20 even loaves instead of having to weigh and divided the dough by hand. As a result, Blue Door’s baguette has been lowered from $5 to $3.
“I’m able to make 20 sourdough and 20 baguette like that,” Brunos said with a snap of the fingers, “without hardly any labor.”
Sourdough bread with dough divider at Blue Door
Dough divider machine preps sourdough bread loaves at Blue Door.
Rinehart demonstrated how quickly the dough divider divides a huge batch of sourdough into 20 loaves that were the same size and weight. She then hand shaped and pinched the seams on the 20 loaves.
The 20-loaf job normally takes about 35 minutes to do all by hand. But with the time-saving divider machine, it took only five.
Blue Door makes its sourdhough fresh twice each day. The divider is also used to cut half-sized pieces for burger buns, hoagie rolls, biscuits and scones.
Bruno invested about $10,000 in the machine, which comes from a baking equipment company in San Francisco.
New Parisian sandwich obsession
Since eating a jambon beurre in Paris, that sandwich has been Bruno’s new obsession. He now offers it through the drive-thru at Blue Door. The jambon beurre’s simple base is a freshly baked baguette with high-quality French butter and sweet apple ham.
The ham comes from Fra’Mani in Berkeley, Calif., and the Insigny Sainte-Mere churned butter with sea salt crystals is from France. Customers can also add Dijon mustard, cornichons and 6-month aged comte cheese to the sandwich.
The buttery, filling, half baguette sandwich sells for $12.
Other Blue Door updates
● The restaurant is now focusing on dinners that complement Blue Door’s popular brunch menu instead of offering a completely different dinner service. Bruno does both the brunch and dinner menus, with the help of chef Israel Martinez. Martinez runs the kitchen after former chef David Chin left the restaurant more than a year ago.
● Blue Door is working with Audimute of Bedford Heights to add a wall-sized, sound-deadening surface to the inside of its noisy dining room. The work is expected to be done in December.
● Other planned improvements include creating a glass-enclosed wine and bourbon storage storage area in the dining room and redoing the back bar by spring.
Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
Dining and Cooking