dolfs's blog

I've recently picked up baking again, in particular sourdough. My baking mostly occurs at sea level in CA, but I am spending part of summer at our house near West Yellowstone at 6,800 ft.

I brought my starter with me and did my first bake here. I anticipated altitude-related problems, but it turned out fine (I made a few adjustments).

The formula was:

The "white" flour was Wheat Montana All Purpose (13.3% protein, so more like bread flour), and the whole wheat flour for the levain was KA Whole Wheat, and for the final dough, it was Central Milling T80 flour.

Process:

• Mix flour and water, autolyse for 1 hr
• Mix-in starter
• Mix-in remaining water and salt, dough temp about 74F
• 3-4 minutes of rubaud mixing
• 3 minutes of slap and fold mixing
• 4 times: wait 40 minutes, stretch and fold (with the last two being coil folds)
• Finish bulk ferment at 40% rise (75F)
• Pre-shape
• 30 minute bench rest
• Shape batard, place in banneton
• Cold retard 12+ hours
• Open bake on stone with tray with ice cubes underneath, 450F 25 minutes
• Bake another 25 at 430F
• Switch oven off, let cool in oven for approx 30 minutes
• Cool on rack completely

I like the resulting crumb and taste. Not overly sour, crumb nice and open, but no enormous holes.

SIP (shelter in place) causes me to very regularly make SIP (Sourdough In Place). All this possible thanks to my local baker "The Midwife and the Baker" which sells high quality bread flour and hard white and hard red wheat flour (nothing to be had for even typical low quality store flours in any store for weeks).

Practice makes perfect, and they're turning out better each time.

Shelter in place does things to you! Baked a Thom Leonard Country French today. Seems I haven't quite forgotten how to (although a little shape mishap)...

Baking Challah is a weekly thing in my kitchen. I have blogged about it extensively. For the holidays I did something a little "special" inspired by a long ago post by Mariana (I think).

 
Rosh Hashanah Challah (yud bet)

Maggie Glezer in "A Blessing of Bread" describes this as a yud (ten) bet (two), an originally Hasidic bread that represents the twelve tribes. I added double twisted ring on the outside symbolizing the world, unity, or the circle of live (the completion of a year), take your pick. The resulting Challah is thus also round, a traditional shape for the holidays.

A particular challenge came with the fact that no recipe I could find would tell me what size/weight to make each of the twelve balls and how much was needed for the two outside ropes. I started with my own recipe of a 1.7lb Challah that I make each week. Figuring I could do with a larger bread (guests for dinner tonight), but not being sure how much dough I would need, I made 3lb of dough starting last night (overnight ferment in the fridge). I also added raisins.

In the end I decided to make the balls 2.5oz each (30 oz) and use the remainder for the two ropes: 9oz each. Once I shaped the balls and placed them on parchment in two triangles of six (bases touching), I used a tape measure to figure out how long my outside ropes needed to be: 40 inches. Now I was very happy with my new 36" maple countertop (see other posts). I could just roll these out on the diagonal. Without it, on a smaller board, or the tile countertops this would have been a no-go. Stretching/rolling the dough that far requires a little patience and one or two rests before you get there. I was in a hurry because my wife needed the oven and broke one of the two, but with some repair its not too bad. The "break" is on the back left in the picture. So, all this worked out perfectly so you can use these ratios: 60-65% of the dough for the 12 balls, the rest for the ropes.

Taste was delicious, but my formula has now proven itself many times so I was not worried about that. Next challenge will be bread sculpting for Halloween. Don't know yet what will top last year's pumpkin and turkey. 

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures 

Same party with neighbors (see Eliopsomo), different bread. From the book "Savory Baking from the Mediterranean" (Anissa Helou), page 133. This was definitely an interesting a delicious treat. Two loaves did not last very long.

 
Tortano Ripieno - Savory Baking from the Mediterranean

This "torta" "no", or not quite pie, is very interesting. A Tuscan bread, it is filled with several kinds of cheese (some of it seen having oozed out above), salami and, of all things, hard boiled eggs. Savory indeed, and very delicious.

Tortano Ripieno - Inside 

I went through a similar recipe transcription process as for the Eliopsomo, but this time things came out too dry. I was suspicious of the 52% hydration that came out of the conversion effort, and added more water to bring it closer to 64%. In the end, I think I could/should have brought it up a little higher even. On the other hand, the low hydration did make the bread have some characteristics of a pie crust. The recipe starts out by thoroughly mixing lard (or butter), with the flour before doing anything else. Again a technique more akin to pie crust than bread dough.

I ended up putting three hard boiled eggs inside each loaf. The recipe calls for cutting them in 6 parts, which I did for one loaf, but for the other loaf I used a slicer and put the slices in. The first method gives nice, recognizable chunks in some bits, the second method distributes the egg better. If you like the egg in it, I'd put in 4 eggs in 6 parts. Concerned about health? This bread is not for you, with 3 or 4 eggs!

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures 

A party with neighbors brought some new inspiration to bake something different. From the book "Savory Baking from the Mediterranean" (Anissa Helou) I picked the recipe for Eliopsomo, or Greek olive bread. The book does not specify baker's percentages or weights, but I used my Dough Calculator to compute those. The conversion for spinach, herbs and olives are guesses and probably not exactly what the author intended. Nevertheless, I doubled the recipe and made two loaves.

Eliopsomo - Savory Breads from the Mediterranean 

It worked out reasonably OK. I did not like the amount of filling. It appeared too much and the moisture content was too high. If I were to bake this again, I'd squeeze, or somehow dry out, the spinach, and also drain the olives much better/longer than I did. I would also reduce the overall amount of filling to about 60% of the recipe. It is, of course, always possible that I just misinterpreted the instructions and simply made too much, but I doubt it. I also believe that a better technique than described in the book would be in order for final shaping, causing the filling to be more distributed (like a cinnamon roll perhaps).

Filling was so wet, stuff leaked out during proofing in my couche (and ruined it). 

Eliopsomo - Inside 

 The taste was definitely OK, but not wow.

A birthday present and long time no baking: had to use the present and bake some!

Suas' Cinnamon Rolls

Ever since I started baking, now about 2 years ago, I hated our tile counter tops which are not suitable for working dough etc. I had worked on a marble slab since, but it was small and got me into trouble with larger batches, or longer breads (like large challah). Yesterday my solution arrived (two day early father's day/birthday present) in the form of a maple countertop, standard depth (25"), 48" wide and 1.5" thick. You can see it in the background of the photo above. While meant to be an actual counter top, I put some rubber feet under it to prevent sliding, and put it on top of the counter. Heavy lifting, but solid and immobile (might leave it on permanently). Wonderful! Now I needed to make/bake something.

I got Suas's book (Advanced Bread and Pastry) a while ago and read almost the whole thing (the technical stuff, not all formulas) in just a few days. I really like this book. This weekend I finally had time to make something from it (work has been incredibly busy, so little baking happened in the last few months, except the routine sandwich bread). The choice was actually from the Viennoisserie section, page 360/361: Cinnamon Rolls made with "Sweet Roll Dough", and  "Sticky Bun Glaze" (p. 394) on the bottom and "Flat Icing" (p. 646) on top. Although not in the recipe, but apparently present in the photographed version, and consistent with that, I added golden raisins.

Suas' Cinnamon Rolls Inside 

Of course, and as fairly typical for me diving into formulas in books, I found an error in the "Sweet Roll Dough" formula right away. I found this because I use my Dough Calculator spreadsheet and it comes up with different answers. In this case the conversion from metric to US decimal was wrong in the formula on the line for Cake Flour, and as a result, the fractional representation of the decimal was wrong as well. In the formula, as presented, cake flour is 0.748 pounds, or 0.424 kg. That is incorrect. The correct number: 0.935 pounds (which is indeed 424 g). Also, the lbs & oz number, given as 12 should be 15 oz. Here is the formula I used (with different numbers because it was scaled down to produce 2 lbs of dough):

Suas' Cinnamon Rolls (12 rolls)

I did not have milk powder, so I used the Dough Calculator to convert to "real" milk (and presented above). Although the formula does not describe it here (but does in the book), I used SAF Osmotolerant Instant Dry yeast (available from King Arthur's Catalog). The high sugar content of the dough can make life a little difficult for regular IDY but OT IDY can handle this better. Fear not if you do not have it. You can use just a little more regular IDY and allocate a little more time for the proof and you should be fine. A similar comment applies to the use of cake flour. The texture will be better with it, but if you don't have it, try AP flour instead. 

The instructions for making the dough are pretty standard. This dough should come out of the mixer fairly cold (72F) so you may need to use cold(er) milk. You can see the calculation for my case in the formula above, where I had to use 42F milk. My fridge happens to be set at 40F, so I used it straight from the fridge. Put all dry ingredients in a bowl, and mix well. Add wet ingredients, except butter and mix at second speed (even 3rd on KA mixers) until full gluten development, adding the butter in small batches starting about 2/3 of the way through mixing. Dough should clear the bowl and be fairly stuff, although supple because of the butter. If you desire raisins, knead them in by hand at this point (I used about 100 g).  Let proof on the counter for about 1 hr and then refrigerate overnight.

One of the problems with this book (in particular for the home baker) is that it provides formulas  (of course using baker's percent) for both large amounts (typically a 10lbs dough) and "test" amounts, but does not specify the yield for either. My prior baking experience told me to make a 2lbs dough to get about 12 rolls (I actually got 13). Likewise it talks about using the "Sticky Bun Glaze", but does not tell you how much you need, nor does it say how much cinnamon sugar and icing you need. I guessed the cinnamon sugar wrong, but here is how to make the right amount (prepare whenever, and store in moisture tight container):

Next morning, take the dough out of the refrigerator about 1-2 hours and let it warm up. While it warms up, prepare the "Stickly Bun Glaze" (optional) from the formula below. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, then add the remaining ingredients and set aside. Alternatively you can heat everything up in a pan until the sugar is dissolved and then let things cool down.

Degas the dough and roll out into a rectangle about twice as wide as it is long, about 1/8" thick. Brush the whole rectangle with water and sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar mixture, making sure to leave a 1" strip at the far (wide) end uncovered so the dough can stick. If you didn't do the raisins already, you could add them here (I prefer to do them earlier so the dough absorbs the raisin flavor). Roll up the dough somewhat tight, starting at the wide, sprinkled end, and ending at the other wide end, where a little pressure will "glue" things shut.

Prepare a baking sheet by covering it with parchment paper and spreading the "Sticky Bun Glaze" evenly on top of the paper. The glaze will melt and be absorbed in the bottom of the rolls and cover the bottom. Take a wet and sharp knife and cut 1" pieces of the rolled up dough and place sideways on the sheet. Leave room between the rolls for expansion. Twelve rolls, evenly spread out, will be about the right spacing on a standard home oven baking sheet. Let proof until about 1.5 to 2 times size. Pre heat the oven to 350F and bake on middle rack. You may want to consider putting another baking sheet immediately under it, to prevent the bottoms from burning. The rolls will be ready in about 15-18 minutes.

Now comes a tricky move. Take the sheet pan out of the oven, place a cooling rack on top, and then, without pressing, flip the whole deal over and place on a surface where you can deal with the dripping glaze. Remove sheet pan and parchment paper. If you used the paper this will be extremely easy! Now, to prevent too much glaze from covering the sides and top of the rolls, use a second cooling rack and invert again. Now let cool. This seems convoluted, but you do not want to handle the hot rolls with your hands: they're really hot, very sticky, and very fragile! Meanwhile prepare the "Flat Icing": 

Mix this together with spatula and try to not incorporate any air in the mixture. If you desire it thinner, add more water. This was just about right though, I think. Now, when the rolls are still somewhat warm, but not hot, put the icing in a piping bag with fine tip, or if you don't have fancy equipment, use a plastic baggy (sandwich size or so), and cut just the tiniest piece of a corner. Drizzle the icing over the rolls in the desired amount and let the icing set (a few minutes). Then, get set and eat!

Cinnamon Roll Sample

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures 

Today I made Norm's recipe for Irish Soda Bread. Discussion here and elsewhere has me convinced that his Americanized version is more appropriately called Spotted Dog.

Norm's Spotted Dog (Soda Bread)

I made 4 loaves. Two loaves were in 7" cake pans, but I used 1 lb 5 oz of dough instead of Norm's suggested 1 lb and 2 oz. The other two were in square pans a little larger and I guesstimated 1 lb 10 oz each. Otherwise I followed Norm's formula to the letter. Mixing was done by first mixing the shortening with the flour, and then adding the remaining dry ingredients, mixing again, and finally the buttermilk and water. I did this by hand using a dough whisk. Since I had 4 pans in the oven at the same time I baked at 350 convection (my oven's thermostat is on the low side so this is not as bad as it seems). Towards the end I even cranked it up to 375F convection to get some more browning. Start to finish (cooling time not included) a little over 1 hour.

Norm's Spotted Dog (Soda Bread) Crumb 

Never made this before, nor tasted it before. The crumb came out really nice and soft, but I think it could have used a little more raisins. Tasted delicious with a little (lot) of butter on top! Thanks Norm. 

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures 

In seeking a tasty and healthy bread for my 6 year old son's lunch box I've been looking to create a sandwich loaf that is in large part whole wheat flour and other grains, yet has a somewhat soft crust (you know children: they don't appreciate the best part of good bread), and fine and soft texture. It should hold up well for PB&J as well as cheese, turkey etc.

Multigrain Oatmeal Sandwich Bread 

Today was baking day for me and I made up a new recipe. It started with a variation on Peter Reinhart's Struan from his "Whole Grain Breads," but ended up with substantial modifications. What remains is the "epoxy" method which has always worked well for me since I learned about it. As you can see from the picture most (if not all) of my goals were reached. The whole loaf is airy, and the crust is mild in flavor and "crustiness." The color is lighter than you might expect because a substantial portion of the whole wheat flour used was white whole wheat flour. This is another one of those "fool the kids" tricks. If the bread doesn't look too brown it tastes better! (The white whole wheat does have a milder taste too).

The overall composition of the bread (not counting the oats on the outside) is 37% bread flour (I used Giusto's Ultimate Performer, organic unbleached), 35% white whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur), and 13% whole wheat flour (Giusto's), 14% rolled oats, 3.4% wheat germ (yes, that's a little over 100%, I rounded the amounts for this summary). Salt comes in at 1.85% overall, and hydration is at 75.6%. The bread flour comes in handy to provide enough gluten for a good rise (needed for good air and fluffy bread) and also helps create a milder (less WW) taste. I am not saying you need this much for the gluten reason, it is just what I ended up with and I am happy with bread that is only 1/3 refined flour. You can experiment with less if you want.

The end result was exactly what I was looking for. Within this goal, it was certainly my best ever. I know that some of you frown upon this kind of bread because it is not 100% whole wheat, it is too much like Wonderbread (not really, except texture may be somewhat), etc. I make plenty of "real" bread, but this outcome was the goal. Others have looked for this in the past (although mostly in a "white" bread), so I thought it worth sharing. 

Here is the recipe (from my Dough Calculator Spreadsheet):

Multigrain Oatmeal Sandwich Bread Formula 

The recipe, as given here, makes 3% extra of the soaker and the biga to compensate for what might stick to your container and utensils and doesn't (easily) make it into the dough. I bake by weight (highly recommended), but approximate volumes are given for almost all ingredients. The wheat germ, if I remember correctly, was about 5 tablespoons. Not mentioned in the formula, but I also used about 1/16 of a teaspoon of ascorbic acid powder (vitamin C) as a dough enhancer. It promotes dough strength and allows for a "lighter" product. It gets destroyed during baking, so no health benefits!

Also note, for those of you that like to judge a formula by looking at the percentages, that soaker and biga are huge percentages in the final dough. This is normal for doughs made with the "epoxy" method as virtually all flour is part of biga, starter or soaker. In fact, if there was no flour whatsoever in the final step, you wouldn't be able to use percentages, because 0 flour would result in infinite percentages for the other components. The dough calculator has a convenient "Analysis" worksheet that collects all ingredients into an "Overall dough", which is how I got the percentages mentioned above.

Directions:

• Soaker: Mix all ingredients until everything is mixed well and hydrated completely. Leave out at room temperature for 12 hours (overnight is what I do).
• Biga: Mix all ingredients until everything is mixed well and hydrated completely, and then knead briefly. For a ball and place in refrigerator for 12 hours (overnight).
• Final Dough: Cut up soaker and biga each into some 10 pieces and mix them in a bowl with all other ingredients. Mix well (dough whisk, stand mixer, whatever you like) on low speed until you have achieved a good blend. This will happen easier than for doughs not made with the "epoxy" method. Continue to knead until full gluten development has been achieved. With this dough you should be able to achieve a wonderful gluten window (window pane test). Your ideal dough temperature at this point should be 78F (if you don't know why or how, don't worry about it).
• Bulk Ferment: Shape dough into a ball with tight skin and place, good side up in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until approximately 2.5 times original size. (This happened for me in about 75 minutes in a 70F) kitchen. The dough will feel very airy! In my case no folds were necessary, but if you feel your dough s not as strong as you want (possible since the dough is fairly wet), give it a folder after 30 minutes and perhaps another after one hour.
• Divide & Pre-Shape: The recipe makes two 1.5 pound loaves, so divide the dough into two equal pieces and quickly shape each piece into a tight ball. Deflate the dough some, but not completely while doing this. Let the pre-shaped balls rest (covered) for about 15 minutes. The dough might be just a tad sticky to your hands (it should have cleared the mixer bowl). If necessary use a tiny amount of flour, or wet your hands.
• Shape & Proof: Pre-heat oven at 400F (I used a stone and cast iron pan for steam, but you can do without). Grease your loaf pans (I used spray with flour in it, you can use some butter, oil, or use parchment paper). Shape each ball into a roll/loaf, make sure seam is pinched shut, and roll the top side (seam will go down in loaf pan) in some oats that you have spread out. Place in loaf pan, seam down, oats up, and cover and let proof until a dome forms above the edge of the loaf pan (this took about 1 hour for me).
• Slash & Bake: Optionally slash the loaves (I used a curved slash through the middle). If you don't slash and you get too much oven spring you may get tearing. I happen to think the slash looks good anyway. Place on the baking stone (i you use one, otherwise straight on rack in lower third of oven) and bake approximately 25 minutes until internal temperature is 205F (or use the "thump" test if you do not have a thermometer). Make sure you rotate pans sometime in the middle to get even heating and browning. I also remove the loaves from their pans when the internal temperature is about 190F so that the sides of the bread get some more browning. Careful with that, the loaves are very fragile at this point!
• Cool & Eat: As always, let cool fully before slicing and eating. This bread freezes well. I slice the whole loaf and freeze two slices in a sandwich ziploc for easy "on demand" retrieval.

I haven't produced much published baking material in the last few months, so here is something new for me.

Bertinet's Croissants & Pain au Chocolat

Since my last post I have been baking plenty, but essentially nothing new. I was baking well rehearsed products (baquette, Tom Leonard's Country French, pizza, sandwich loaf, Challah) for the family and a few parties. Virtually no baking in January: my family and I were in Tanzania on Safari (anybody should be willing to forego baking for a few weeks to see that), and now we're in Montana for our annual winter vacation. Out here I have virtually no tools (no stand mixer, dough scraper or bench knife, no thermometer, limited flour selection), but I needed to bake. I made some bread from Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day. I made some 50/50 white and white whole wheat dough and produced some rolls one day, and a sandwich loaf yesterday. I'd say both were OK, but not as good as other breads I've made in the past using more traditional approaches. So, it was time for a little more of a challenge.

I had Amazon deliver several bread books to Montana so I had something to read. One of them was Bertinet's "Crust" and I liked the croissant recipe in it. It also comes with lots of description and pictures. So far I had resisted making croissants, despite the fact that my family loves them, because it seemed to involved, and perhaps difficult. Since I am on vacation, and was not skiing yesterday and today (avoiding the President's Day crowds) I decided it was time for croissants. Here is the recipe from the book, scaled and converted through my Dough Calculator. I also converted from fresh yeast to instant dry yeast.

Bertinet's Croissant Recipe

I didn't have whole milk so I substituted 1/3 cream (which is probably too much) and the rest skim milk. I also used 4T of Splenda rather than sugar (Splenda converts on a 1:1 volume basis). I used one large egg for the 50.8 g of egg. The butter listed on the bottom is not part of the dough, but is rolled in later. The egg below it is for an egg wash. Since I had no stand mixer I mixed and kneaded by hand, which is easier for this recipe because no full gluten development is needed.

Directions (very abbreviated - the book has 18 pictures illustrating the steps):

1. Mix dry ingredients well
   
2. Add liquids and mix until well incorporated.
   
3. Knead for 3-4 minutes. Full gluten development is not needed, nor desired. It will happen during the rolling process.
4. Form dough into a ball and cut cross on top.  Chill in refrigerator for 2-12 hours. The dough will ferment and swell.
   
5. Take 2 sticks of butter (which is slight more than needed) out of the fridge about 1 hour before you take the dough out.
   
6. Take dough out and roll out in 4 directions (use the cross as a guide) into a rectangle about 1/4" thick. Rotate so it looks like a diamond.
   
7. Put butter between two sheets of plastic and pound gently with a rolling pin or other heavy object until a rectangle about 1/3" thick is created. Remove top plastic and pick up bottom plastic and butter to turn over on top of middle of square dough (you should have the side triangles of the diamond still uncovered). Try to not touch (and warm up) the butter. Remove final sheet of plastic.
   
8. Fold over rest of dough and seal, completely enclosing the butter. Repeat following step three times.
   
9. Place dough with short side facing you. Roll out, gently and evenly, in the long direction only, until about 3 times as long. Fold in thirds and press to seal. Place in plastic bag and chill in fridge for 30 minutes (place on flat surface!). Mark with indentations in dough, or a note, so you don't forget whether you are on cycle 1, 2 or 3. Roll gently and evenly to prevent cracks and rips and butter leaking out. If it does, cover with flower and continue. The open spot will be on the inside once folded.
10. Just before the next step, prepare an egg wash by beating one egg with a pinch of salt. 
    
11. After the final chill, after the third cycle, have short side facing you and roll out into a rectangle approximately 3-4 mm (1/5" - 1/8") thick. Keep the rectangle about 12" wide (you may mav to toll sideways as well now) and put the rest in the other dimension. You should end up with approximately 12"x36".
    
12. Using a knife, trim edges to make a nice rectangle. Cut rectangle into two strips approximately 6" wide. Cut each strip into triangles with a base  of about 9 cm (3 1/2").
    
13. Make a small cut (1.5 cm or 1/2") into the middle of the base of each triangle and then, holding the outside corners of the triangle, stretch a little and roll up towards the top of the triangle. Roll tight, but not excessively so.
    
14. Bend the corners of the rolled croissant to create the traditional crescent shape and place on greased cookie sheet, or parchment paper, with the tip of the rolled triangle on the bottom (to avoid unrolling). Leave ample space for expansion during proof and baking.
    
15. Brush each croissant with egg wash, from the middle to the outsides to prevent egg wash pooling in the creases. Cover with some non-stick cover, or put in a draft free place, to proof for approximately 2 hours. Do not do this in too warm a place, as the butter may start oozing out. Apply egg wash a second time just before baking.
    
16. Preheat at 425F and bake for 17-20 minutes until golden brown. Cool slightly on racks and eat warm!
    

The recipe made about 14 croissants for me (I rolled them a little tick, so your mileage may be better). I actually started this at night and left the third chill in the refrigerator overnight. Also, please note that all this was done at 6,800 feet altitude so things may be slightly different at sea level. I proofed and baked one half (see photo above) and froze the rest after one egg wash. I placed them in the freezer on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. We'll be baking these tomorrow after a 20 minute thaw (or so), and at a slightly lower temperature. Unless this doesn't work, I will not post about that.

I remembered to take two pictures in the middle of the family eating most of these croissants. Here is a picture of the inside:

Bertinet's Croissant Crumb

We eat these the way I was taught in Europe. Put some butter and jam on your plate and then, before each bite, apply some of the butter to the end you're going to bite, slather some jam on top, bite, savour, repeat! 

For my first time making croissants I was extremely pleased (and so was the family!). They were extremely light and fluffy, nice color, crisp but thin outside crust, flakey and not greasy on the inside. My son loves chocolate croissants, or pain au chocolat, so I used some of the dough to make three of those (that was all the good chocolate I had in the house as this was an afterthought, and the store is a 30 minute ride into town). That's what you see as the more rectangular shapes in the front of the picture. I took a strip of three chocolate squares and laid them on top of a rolled out rectangle approximately 4"x6". This left about 3/4" on each side. Roll the dough over the chocolate in the long direction and completely roll up and seal the sides. Rest of the treatment is the same as for the croissants.

Conclusion: This was nowhere near as difficult as I had anticipated and the results were fabulous (better than I've had from most stores). Well worth the try and, if my freezing experiment works out, you can make a bunch the day before and freeze them. Everytime you want them it should only take about 1 hour (thaw + bake) before you can have fresh croissants for breakfast! 

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures