Croissants. The Julia Child way.

What does it take to make you want to bake?

For me, all it took was a croissant making scene from “It’s Complicated”. I have never baked anything bread-like before from scratch, but this one minute scene made it look like the most deliciously joyous occasion.

So it began. My quest for a reliable croissant recipe. I spent some time trawling the interweb for some croissant shaped solutions. I watched clips from youtube, my browsers tab-filled, but none of these were particularly inspiring and I wasn’t about to embark on this croissant craze the cheaters way. I read reviews. No one really had anything good to say about using pre made puff pastry. Heavy and unflakey? What’s the point! So, what do you do? You don’t just give in and grab any recipe you read for the sake of it and you most certainly do not give up - you hit the books! Well rather, I hit the books. Brain said, “croissants – the French – French cook books - ha! Funny. Meryl Streep and croissants in “It’s Complicated” – “Julie & Julia” -  mmm, bouillabaisse - boeuf bourguignon – Oh the Julia Child cook book!- Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Face smiled smugly, almost knowingly, that there in lies a recipe to butter me up.

I was excited. I had not yet made anything from the book since receiving it as a gift at Christmas. I pulled out volume one and had a quick flick through. No croissants there. On to volume two. Behold! An 8 page recipe totalling 12 hours minimum for the end to end production of approximately 15 large or 30 small croissants.

I wasn’t intimidated at all. Nope. Not one bit. Okay, maybe  just slightly. But I would have to say, that Mastering the Art of French Cooking is set out and written in such a brilliant way. Sure, it doesn’t enclose strategically food-styled photographs. The book was written in the sixties! That’s a good fifty years ago. Instead, it displays hand drawn pictures of kitchen equipment and food.

The book starts off with a story and you really do feel the love for food these writers had. This is carried through out the book with in-depth explanations, tips and tricks.

The recipes are divided into different categories (eg, Sauces, Soup, Eggs, Fish… Beef) and are broken down into smaller sub categories (Vegetables: carrots, peas… potatoes). It starts from a simple recipe and builds on the existing base of ingredients that you have used and previous methods that you may have practiced.

A very effective method of learning that takes the intimidation out of cooking.

I particularly liked the format of the book. Unlike many current cook books who split a page into “Ingredients” and “Method” blocks, Mastering the Art of French Cooking lists the ingredients you will need side by side with the method. This is useful for a lengthy recipe and minimises confusion or accidental omission of imperative ingredients. Included in the method are descriptive and detailed notes on what to look out for, problems that may occur and how to fix it. Honestly, it’s quite educational.

An educational book and an amateur baker armed with scribbled notes head for the kitchen. 12 hours to the window. Sleep in sight at baker o’clock.

11pm. A regular night at home.

I prepare the yeast in warm water allowing it to liquefy with sugar. When the yeast is ready, I mix in the milk and oil into the flour. The mixture is then rests for a couple of minutes to allow the flour to absorb the liquid. When it is soft and sticky, I use a scraper to knead until the dough has enough body to draw back into shape when pushed out but careful not to over-activate the gluten.

I place the dough in a bowl and cover it with glad wrap and a tea towel. There is about 2 cups of dough in the bowl and it is meant to rise 3 and 1/2 its original size. I set the alarm on my blackberry for 2am.

2am. First Rise

First rise indeed. For the dough and for me. The alarm goes off and it is the most excited that I ever have been to get out of bed. The house is quiet and M-dog gets quite a fright when I pull open the door of my room that she is so comfortably snuggled up to and make my way to the kitchen. She follows, thinking that there is a treat in it for her but moves to nap beside to the couch when she discovers that there is no midnight snack to be had.

Fascinating! The dough has risen rather spectacularly to about 7 cups. It is soft, light and springy to touch as I loosen the edges from the bowl and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Of course once loosened some air is released and it isn’t as mountainous as it was in the bowl. With the palms of my hand I push the dough out into a large rectangle and fold it into threes – as they say in the book “fold in three as though folding a business letter”. I gently lift the dough letter off the table and place it back into the bowl covered in clear wrap and a tea towel. I put it to bed for a second rise for it to double in volume. I set the alarm to go off in 1 and a half hours and slide back into bed.

3:30 am. Second Rise

I carefully slip out of bed, not to wake S* who is discordantly snoring tunes in sleep land where the un-baking sane are. Once again, I have awoken M-dog who looks at me in anticipation for a nod to indicate that food will be provided at my 3:30am second rise rendezvous. But. There. Wasn’t. Instead, I am pleased to find that my dough has risen twice it’s volume! I release it from the clutches of the bowl that holds, turn out the dough on a floured plate tightly covered in clean wrap and refrigerate.

Within the next 20 minutes in the company of a gentle humming fridge I prepare the butter. About half a block of butter it is! In order to smooth the butter evenly onto the dough, it needed to  be worked. Meaning, beating the butter with a rolling pin to soften. I must say, this was extremely fun! Although, discrete butter bashing at 3am in the morning proved to be quite difficult. At times during this process I had to pop the butter back in the fridge as it did get quite soft and oily. The aim is to have a cold and spreadable butter.

Turn 1: Once achieved, I push out the chilled dough into the shape of a rectangle and begin slathering 2/3 of butter onto the dough leaving about a centimeter around the edges unbuttered. Back to folding “business letters” – unbuttered third up, then buttered third down and over. This creates 3 even layers of dough that is separated by 2 layers of butter.

Turn 2. With the dough vertically placed facing me, I use a rolling pin to stretch out the rectangle to fold it into thirds again. There are now 6 layers of butter that separates 7 layers of dough. The dough is now wrapped tightly and placed in the refrigerator to deactivate the gluten. After a good hour or so in the kitchen, camera lense also lightly floured, I rest my weary butter smelling head to bed.

5:30am. Hit that snooze button

I drift into deeper sleep with a soundtrack of bells. The volume escalates like someone walking towards me with a ringing timer. I roll over and hit that snooze button. Just…five…more…minutes.

6:15 am. Turns 3 and 4

I shuffle into the kitchen, this time M-dog doesn’t even get up! She lifts her head and looks at me for a split second, then goes back to sleep. I unwrap the chilled and buttered dough and deflate it by tapping it with a rolling pin. It needs to rest for 8 to 10 minutes to relax the gluten once again. The butter has hardened into flakes between the dough so I tap it from one side to another with the rolling pin to soften it. I then roll the dough out into a large rectangle to perform turns 3 and 4 (same as turn 2). According to the book, this achieves 55 layers of dough separated by butter! I believe this is needed to make soft and flakey croissants. I wrap it up tightly again and place it in the fridge with some weight on top of it to prevent it from rising. It needs to rest for another 2 hours. I take a look outside, the sky has turned to a back-lit dark purple and the early birds seem to have awaken from their chirpless slumber. Me? My shoulders slightly slumped and eyes some what stinging, I reach for my pillow and get tangled in the blanket for one last nap. Good night.

9:00 am. There is light at the end of the tunnel. The easy part.

The fun begins! Finally I get to form the croissants. After a quick power nap, I am miraculously full of energy! I spritefully reach for the chilled dough, pizza cutter and rolling pin. By the way, I think the M-dog has decided to ignore me. I roll the dough out and cut them into triangles. From the base of the isosceles triangle, I roll the dough up to the tip and fold the ends down to form a crescent shape. Now for the final rise.

12:00pm. Baking on adrenaline.

You will know when to put them in the oven. It is now soft and hollow-like after the final rise. There is not much to do here, but glaze them with an egg wash and pop them in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes at 220 degrees!

Awaiting the blazing oven

Voilà!  My Croissants. 12 Hours later. Devoured in 20 minutes by all. Hooray! Time for bed.

So! I’ve learnt that when the book was written, the average French household did not do any yeast baking and bread making because there was no need. There were apparently such amazing bakers in every neighbourhood that household supply stores didn’t even sell bread pans! So that meant that there weren’t any recipes around. They also mentioned that the recipes were “…those used by professionals whose techniques we have worked out for the home baker…” – well it certainly worked wonderfully! Thank you.

Although the process was a lengthy one, it was a lot of fun. As jubilant as it looked in the croissant making scene in the movie!

Bon Appétit dear readers!

You may also enjoy:

• Chocolate bowls
• Mystery Mousse

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