STEP-BY-STEP CROISSANTS FOR BEGINNERS: How to Make Croissants at Home (Without Sourdough)

This is my foolproof method on How to Make Croissants at Home using active dry yeast for a flaky exterior and soft layers inside. And once you’ve mastered the basic techniques of croissant making, the possibilities are endless, such as these Spring-inspired raspberry ones!

Full recipe details on my blog here: https://abrightmoment.com/yeast-based-croissants-recipe/

Please let me know any troubles you run into or questions you may have 🙂

Happy baking friends!!

besides sourdough bread I think my most requested like step-by-step guide is how to make croissants at home so that’s what I’m going to do today it’s going to be a lot easier than you guys expect so just hang tight with me and let’s get to it listen if you guys thought I was going to need this by hand you must be lying we’re going to do this in a stand mixer with the hook attachment if you watch my Brios donuts recipe video um I said how that thing is literally going to your be your best friend when baking in the kitchen and I hold to that so let’s So let’s go attach the hook this is the hook i think it comes with like most um stand mixers like already in the package but if not I’m sure you can find one cheap off Amazon so this may feel a little wrong but we’re not going to bloom our yeast um we’re going to add 1 and 1/2 cups of cool water but you can use warm water you can literally use whatever water never use hot water though 2 and 1/2 teasp of active dry yeast you don’t want to use instant yeast because um instant yeast is usually it’s mainly for when you’re making bread the same day active dry yeast is great for when you’re making like overnight breads and then a four cup of sugar and we’re going to add four cups of allpurpose flour you could use bread flour and then 2 tsp of fine baking salt we’re just going to mix this until the flour is incorporated on a very low speed flour is fully absorbed we’re going to add in our 2 tablespoons of softened butter knead your dough for about like 5 to 6 minutes until it’s nice and smooth and it’s like bouncy and pliable um a key teller though is if it starts to pull away from your stand mixer bowl we’re going to cover it and let it rise for about 30 minutes so now that we’ve allowed our dough to rest for 30 minutes we’re going to transfer it out onto some saran wrap and press it i’m going to wet my hands for this cuz it is a stickier dough and we’re going to press it to a half inch thick rectangle just going to wrap it up tightly and store it in the fridge for four hours to overnight it’s genuinely been four hours later i got my butter oh a tidbit on the butter if you want to use a European style butter so one that’s higher in fat content if it’s lower in fat content that means it’s has like more water to it and it has the probability of breaking up if not like pounded well during the lamination process so I go with like KY Gold organic Valley also has good there’s a lot of European butters um that you can find so we’re gonna take our parchment paper i crinkled it so it’ll be easier to fold and we’re gonna use a measuring tape to create this like 8×10 rectangle and come here i’m just going to show you guys just going to fold our flaps in and flip this upside down a roll [Music] once you roll it out and it’s nice and even we’re going to put this in the fridge for 10 minutes while we roll out our dough that’s been in the fridge for 4 hours the trick is you do want to work with a wellfled surface but you don’t want the flour to like stay in the dough when you’re laminating it which is kind of confusing now that I say it out loud but I’m going to I’m going to explain it as we walk through it we want to roll this out to 24 in by 10 in add our chilled butter slab so that the two 10in sides match you want to make sure that your butter is soft so that it can bend and if you see it like glossy almost like it’s melting put it back in the fridge to chill at any time do our first lamination and I’m going to show you the process of laminating the dough you’re going to pound the dough one way and then you’re going to pound it the opposite way and then we’re going to roll in length to 24 in i like to do is trim the very ends of them where it’s like super uneven see um so you have a nice even rectangle and now we’re going to fold it like a letter so imagine that the center remains the same we’re going to fold one flap and then the second flap on top and then we’re going to put that in the fridge for 30 minutes so it said 30 minutes so we’re going to do our second round of lamination i’m just going to dump this over perfect again you want your surface to be super well fled so we’re going to do the pounding process so we’re going to gently pound one way gently pound the other way do the same thing but we’re going to start rolling opposite to what we just pounded and then again rolling opposite we just want to make sure that the butter is spreading evenly so again we’re going to roll this out to a 24x 10 in rectangle and then we’re gonna do the same exact process of folding it like a letter three different ways um and then we’re going to put it in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour and then we’re going to roll it out the same exact way one more time and that time we’re going to shape our croissants as well just want to trim all the edges so that we have a nice even rectangle then we’re going to alternate slicing even triangles then we’re going to create a little slit in the bigger end and we’re going to gently pull the tip and then roll up tightly we’re going to place them on our parchment lined baking pan to rise about like 2 to 4 hours it is going to depend on like the warmth of your kitchen but we want them super jiggly and doubled in size and then we’re going to brush them with an egg wash and then we’re going to bake them okay yes it is the next day but listen guys when it is the same day that you bake them you want your croissants to cool at least an hour with like any form of bread baking you want them to your you want your bread to fully cool because it’s still baking as it cools but look how flaky they turned out i am I’m just so excited and I think it’s time we slice into one just like that you have made a perfect croissant at home it’s so scary when you slice into the croissants like every time I make even though I made them like multiple times at this point because it could it’s there’s always that chance it could turn into like a crescent roll where like if a key tip to it not turning the crescent roll which I don’t think I’ve told y’all yet is to make sure your dough and your butter are cold at all times you want them to be at the same temperature of coldness and by that I mean the dough should not be super sticky it should be firm the butter should not be glossy or like even if it looks like it’s like slightly melting or warm put it back in the freezer don’t even roll it out because where it becomes a crescent roll versus a croissant is when that butter has been fully absorbed by the by the dough not in the flour by the dough we want the butter to like stay in those laminated layers so it should be like dough butter dough butter instead of all in one piece which is a custard roll i hope that makes sense but now you’re ready to enjoy your own croissants at home you can enjoy them with jam with butter you can make pana chocolate croissants um I have those on my website same exact method you just slice them into long rectangles and then roll them up with bars of chocolate and now it’s time to try them you just got to try it yourself you guys are going to rock this and let me know what we should do next bye guys