Recipe Name: Croissants

Recipe Name
Croissants

Ingredients:
3C unbleached all purpose flour 1C cake or pastry flour in a medium sized bowl. Form a well in the middle and add: 1C water Turn with a whisk, initially mixing in half of the flour, forming a wet paste. Add: 2T melted unsalted butter

How to Prepare:
Continue stirring, gradually adding more and more of the flour clinging to the sides of the bowl. When it gets too thick to stir, begin working with your hands. Turn it out onto a well floured board and knead into a shiney mass, about 8 minutes (turn and push, turn and push). Wrap in plastic wrap, stick inside a plastic bag and stick it in the coldest part of your refrigerator for a couple of hours (DO NOT FREEZE). Now comes the messy part. Take a pound of butter and work it with your hands until it has a firm but malleable consistency. Knead in: 1/4C all purpose flour to help with this process. If it gets too warm, stick it in the refrigerator for a while. Place the glob on a sheet of waxed paper and form into a square roughly 3/4 thick and 6" X 6". Let that chill a bit while you remove the dough from the refrigerator and work on it. You'll find it very elastic at this point. Place it on a lightly floured board and roll it out until it is 12"-14" in diameter. Try putting the wrapped slab of butter on it to make sure the dough is rolled out far enough that the corners can be folded over on top of the butter and overlap (you will be wrapping the butter with the dough). Remove the waxed paper from the butter, placing it in the middle of the dough. Fold the four corners over the butter and press to seal.
Folds:
Gently roll this concoction, avoiding the ends, until it is roughly 12" X 18". Do not press hard. Let the weight of the roller do most of the work. Flip the dough over frequently and dust with flour to make sure it doesn't stick. Fold twice along the long axis, near third to the middle, far third to the middle. Place it in a plastic bag to rest. This is the first of five folds. On each successive fold, you will gently roll along the axis of the dough, avoiding the ends and folding to the middle, place the dough in a plastic bag and return to the refrigerator. The turns go like this: 1st turn immediately (the one you've just done) 2nd turn after 20 minutes refrigeration 3rd turn after 25 minutes [more] refrigeration 4th turn after 30 minutes [more] refrigeration 5th turn after 40 minutes [more] refrigeration As the butter layers get thinner, you can let the refrigeration go longer. After the 5th turn, return the bagged dough to the refrigerator and let rest another 40 minutes or overnight.
Baking:
Preheat the oven to 425F. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured board until it is 1/4" thick, 10" wide, and as rectangular as possible. Pressing with a knife, split the dough lengthwise down the middle (2 5" wide strips), then into squares on each side, then cut those diagonally into triangles. Take each triangle, roll a long edge towards a corner, stretching the dough as you go, and place on a parchment covered cooking sheet. (Waxed paper will work but it smokes a lot.) For fancy, try rolling a glob of your favorite jam or jelly inside the croissant. This takes care in sealing, otherwise it will leak and burn. Brush each of the croissants with an egg/milk solution (1 egg beaten with a 1/4C milk) and stick in the refrigerator for an hour. [Preheat oven now?] Remove, brush with egg and milk mixture again, stick in the center of the oven. After 20 minutes, reduce the heat to the 350-375F range, and bake another 30-35 minutes. If they start getting too brown, rotate or cover with aluminum foil, or shut the heat off, depending on conditions.