French dough: recipe and cooking features

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Cooking French pastries is definitely not for the impatient. Despite the large number of kitchen appliances that can be of great help, this process is not quick. To make the buns tender and tasty, you need to follow a few mandatory rules.

What are French croissants?

Croissants are buttery puff pastries of Austrian origin, named for their crescent shape. These products are baked from puff yeast dough. The dough is layered with butter, rolled out and folded several times in a row, and then rolled out into a sheet using a technique called lamination. The process results in a layered and delicate texture that melts in your mouth.

Crescent-shaped bread has been made since the Renaissance, and such pies may have been made since antiquity. Croissants have long been a staple in Austrian and French bakeries and pastry shops. In the late 1970s, the production of prefabricated, frozen, preformed but not baked dough turnedits into fast food which can be baked very quickly. The croissant was clearly the French answer to American-style fast food, and today 30-40% of the croissants sold in French bakeries and pastry shops are made with frozen dough.

Varieties of goodies

Raw croissant dough can also be wrapped around any praline, almond paste or chocolate before baking. In addition, any finely chopped sweet and unsweetened fillings can be added to the products. Croissants can be stuffed with dried fruits like dried apricots or raisins or fresh fruits like apples. In France and Spain, these buns are usually sold unfilled and eaten without butter, but are sometimes topped with almonds. In the US, sweet fillings are sometimes used, and warm croissants can be filled with ham and cheese or feta and spinach.

In Russia, products are sold in their natural form or filled with chocolate, cheese, almonds or buttercream. In Germany, croissants are sometimes filled with nutella or marzipan.

Cooking Features

Perhaps the most important piece of advice to anyone trying to make French puff pastry croissants is to not rush into any aspect of the process. It can be stopped at one of the stages, and then continued, but each step must be done correctly. The combination of some actions may seem complicated, but in the end you will get tender and delicious pastries.

One of the basic rules is that stuffiness, high temperatures and humidity will never allowcook french pastry the right way. If you live in a hot area, this can be difficult. If you have air conditioning, you can do it any time of the year.

What do you need?

According to the French pastry recipe, you will need the following:

• 250 grams of baking flour;
• 1 l. h. s alt;
• 35 grams of sugar;
• 10 grams fresh yeast (or 5 grams dry instant);
• 115 grams of water;
• 25 grams melted uns alted butter.

To create layers;

• 125 grams uns alted butter;
• 1 whole egg.

For sugar syrup:

• 100 grams of water;
• 50 grams of sugar.

How to prepare for the process?

First we need to make a template to prepare the butter. The recipe for French puff pastry involves using it in the dough as a whole layer.

Fold a piece of A4 paper in half (C5 size). Place a large piece of baking paper in the center. Fold the baking paper towards the C5 paper in the center twice from left to right, then from right to left, then twice from top to bottom. Now it should wrap sheet C5. Fold the edges around the baking paper.

Unfold the resulting design and remove sheet C5, set the baking paper aside for later use.

How to prepare butter?

According to the recipe for French yeast dough, the butter should be fat. At the very least, it should contain 82% of it. The harder the pack of butter,the more fat it has. Use the uns alted variety. If you have 250 grams of butter, cut it diagonally. You have to be precise as you should end up with two even 125g pieces.

Then cut the resulting blocks lengthwise into equal layers. Put them together to make a flat rectangle. Unfold the baking paper you set aside and spread the butter in the middle in a single layer. Fold the paper back to the size you made earlier, i.e. around the C5 sheet. Flip over so the folded sides are at the back. Lightly flatten the butter with a rolling pin.

The next step is to gently push the oil into the four corners. Be very careful not to puncture the edges of the paper. Roll it up and gently squeeze it to make a thin layer even in thickness. Once the oil block is ready, place it in the refrigerator.

How to start cooking?

The recipe for French dough requires you to be as focused as possible. Melt the butter, add it to a bowl of water and let it cool. Melted butter is somewhat easier to use once it has set slightly, but it is more convenient to measure the amount in liquid form. As it cools, it rises to the surface of the water and hardens slightly, making it easier to work with.

In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients together. It is very important that the yeast does not touch the s alt, so do not put it in right away. Use the bottom of the bowl to make a well. Pour in the prepared liquid ingredients - at first a little and mix everything,then add the rest. Just now add the yeast.

Gently mix all the ingredients with only the fingers of one hand. The mixture should include all of the wet ingredients and should look like thick pancake batter. While mixing the ingredients, gradually add a little flour to them. When the French pastry has a thick consistency, quickly mix it into the remaining flour. Work quickly, but without excessive agitation, to stop the liquid from spreading. Cut it in several places with a knife, and then mold it back into one ball.

How to knead it correctly?

This French bun dough recipe looks complicated, but all you need is patience. This will be followed by the kneading process, it will take about 10 minutes of constant activity. Here you will have to seriously strain your muscles. Push the dough away from you and push back. Rotate it with three fingers, holding the bottom, and move it back and forth away from you. When it becomes smooth and elastic, roll it into a ball using the palms of your hands. After that, squeeze the dough with your fingers and fold its edges towards the middle. Repeat this action several times.

Wrap the French pastry in plastic wrap. Place it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

How to roll it out?

Place some flour on a table or large board. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and place it on the prepared surface. Draw a rectangle on the flour layer to visualize where the workpiece will be rolled.

Take the dough down with a rolling pin and flatten it a bitsurface. Fold the A4 paper in half again. This is used to determine the length and width of the test. The dough recipe for French croissants requires the following parameters to be reached.

The width of the rolled sheet should be A4, plus the size of the thumbs on both sides. Length - A4 plus a little more than half the length of A4 paper. Roll it out using a rolling pin. For the dough to be as even as possible, keep your hands in the middle of the rolling pin, not at the ends.

Adding oil

Take the butter out of the refrigerator and unfold the top of the baking paper, leaving the butter sheet still attached. Place it on the bottom of your dough. Unwrap the butter, turn over and remove the baking paper, leaving it on top.

Calculate about a quarter of a layer of dough in length and wrap it up, grabbing oil. Then do the same on the other side. Then fold it in half, placing the oil-soaked halves on top of each other. Press lightly on the edges to seal the oil inside. Put some more flour on the table and move the dough onto it.

Using a rolling pin, gently tap all over the dough. This helps distribute the oil in it. Roll the dough up and down from the middle. Roll it from the middle up and then down the same way.

Fold it finally so that it looks like a book. Wrap in plastic wrap.

Put in fridge or freezer depending on how fast you want to make it. You need to cool it downat least one hour.

What to do after cooling?

Press lightly on the edges of the pastry sheet to seal. Tap on its entire surface with a rolling pin. Roll out again. Fold the top third from top to bottom, and then the bottom third from bottom to top. The edges should touch, but not overlap. Roll out gently, wrap in plastic wrap again and refrigerate for an hour.

How to prepare it for forming products?

Roll it out so that the length of the rolling pin is less than the width of the layer. Before you continue, make sure the dough doesn't stick to the bench. Add flour if needed. Fold it like an envelope on all sides so that the edges touch but don't overlap. Sprinkle with flour and roll out again into a rectangular shape. If it is uneven, trim the edges with a rolling pin.

How to cut into croissants?

It is very important to cut with a sharp knife to even out the edges. Don't pull the knife through the dough. Starting on the right side of the dough and working from the left, make marks on the top long edge. According to the marks made, cut the dough to the lower right corner and cut out triangles.

When you have all the figures ready, take each individual piece and gently pull to make it a little longer. Then fold the bottom two corners in slightly, as shown in the photo attached to the recipe. French dough should be elastic, so this process will not cause you any difficulties.

Carefully roll up the croissant. Try to press down the layers as best you can. Make sure the last end of the triangle is under the blank on the baking sheet, otherwise it will unroll during cooking.

Grease the products with an egg and leave for 2-3 hours at a temperature not exceeding 25 degrees Celsius. It is very important that the egg layer is placed only on the surface of the croissants and not on the edges. If it comes into contact with the edges, the dough will begin to unfold. This is one of the basic requirements for the recipe for French puff pastry croissants.

How to bake?

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius in advance and bake the croissants for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. When doing this, create steam in the oven by spraying water all over the oven or adding water to the hot pan at the bottom of the oven.

How to make sugar syrup?

Make sugar syrup by mixing 100 grams of boiling water and 50 grams of sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Using a small brush, glaze the croissants with the prepared syrup as soon as you take them out of the oven. Use it sparingly to keep items from getting wet.

How to spread cooking over several days?

It's undeniable that the recipe for French yeast dough buns is a lengthy process. To do your best, you need time. Luckily, there is a way that you can doa few steps every day, thereby saving your time. This is done like this:

• Day 1 - prepare the butter, wrap it in paper, put it in the fridge.
• Day 2 - Prepare the dough and put butter on it. Just roll it up and refrigerate.
• Day 3 - Roll out the layers a few times, roll up and place in the fridge.
• Day 4 - do the final kneading of the layers. Place to cool.
• Day 5 – Shape the pieces.
• Day 6 - break!
• Day 7 - Check the pastry pieces, brush with egg, bake and sprinkle with sugar syrup.

If you do it right, the results will surprise you. Take the time to follow all of the above instructions and steps completely and you will have a batch of amazing classic French croissants.