I made pain au chocolat today. No crumb shot because I’m gifting these to friends, but I think it looks pretty good. I used u/charonill recipe 😊 Done by manual sheeter RS101, Plugra butter, KA flour! I baked these at 400F for 5m, then dropped it to 350F and baked for 24m. This temperature works best for me, but each oven is different.
When I cut this opened, I was surprised. I thought this batch would be bad because my butter cracked when doing the second turn. I didn’t take a picture of the lamination, because I could clearly see the broken butter. I also didn’t follow all the signs of what people usually say is considered well-proofed, such as layer starting to open, extremely poofy looking croissant, etc.. Turned out, this is my best batch so far.
I think I also figure out why my croissants were bad before. I either overproof it, or underbake my croissants. I’m leaning towards underbaked, because I used a pretty light pan for my previous batches, and I’m guessing it doesn’t conduct heat as well. Decided to bake this batch with a darker colored pan and it turned out great. Honestly, I don’t know. It could be both. Regardless, I’m happy that I finally achieved the crumb that I always see in the internet 😆 so happy to see the result as well because I will have a newborn soon, and I don’t think I have the time to practice haha. Btw, this is done with a manual dough sheeter (RS101). I gave up hand rolling a while ago 😆
When I cut this opened, I was surprised. I thought this batch would be bad because my butter cracked when doing the second turn. I didn’t take a picture of the lamination, because I could clearly see the broken butter. I also didn’t follow all the signs of what people usually say is considered well-proofed, such as layer starting to open, extremely poofy looking croissant, etc.. Turned out, this is my best batch so far.
I think I also figure out why my croissants were bad before. I either overproof it, or underbake my croissants. I’m leaning towards underbaked, because I used a pretty light pan for my previous batches, and I’m guessing it doesn’t conduct heat as well. Decided to bake this batch with a darker colored pan and it turned out great. Honestly, I don’t know. It could be both. Regardless, I’m happy that I finally achieved the crumb that I always see in the internet 😆 so happy to see the result as well because I will have a newborn soon, and I don’t think I have the time haha. Btw, this is done with a manual dough sheeter (RS101). I gave up hand rolling a while ago 😆
When I cut this opened, I was surprised. I thought this batch would be bad because my butter cracked when doing the second turn. I didn’t take a picture of the lamination, because I could clearly see the broken butter. I also didn’t follow all the signs of what people usually say is considered well-proofed, such as layer starting to open, extremely poofy looking croissant, etc.. Turned out, this is my best batch so far.
I think I also figure out why my croissants were bad before. I either overproof it, or underbake my croissants. I’m leaning towards underbaked, because I used a pretty light pan for my previous batches, and I’m guessing it doesn’t conduct heat as well. Decided to bake this batch with a darker colored pan and it turned out great. Honestly, I don’t know. It could be both. Regardless, I’m happy that I finally achieved the crumb that I always see in the internet 😆 so happy to see the result as well because I will have a newborn soon, and I don’t think I have the time to practice haha. Btw, this is done with a manual dough sheeter (RS101). I gave up hand rolling a while ago 😆
My second time with a manual dough sheeter. I think I’m getting closer in this journey :). I cut it not too soon after baking because I was eager to eating a hot ham and cheese croissant 😆. I made two ham and cheese and 4 butter croissant. I will cut the butter croissant to look at the crumb later once it is cool down. I thought I messed up this batch because the house was hot, and the dough temp after mixing was quite high. Window pane was about 50% developed. I used Claire’s recipe. When proofing, the house was really hot that I had to cut it short a little (usually I proof these for 4 hours, but this batch I did 3hours). I used less flour during lamination, was more patient with things. Thank you for all advice that I have received from this subreddit 😊
I used Claire’s recipe. This is done by a manual sheeter. What do you think could caused this? I suspected too much flour used in the rolling process and maybe stretching the dough too much during shaping but I’m unsure. It could also be underbaked as well. But I noticed the gap is where the croissant is rolled so I’m leaning more toward too much flour used in rolling.