Why we make croissants from scratch every morning

Making croissants from scratch in a small cafe is not the efficient choice. It takes three days from mixing the dough to pulling the trays from the oven, it requires a cold kitchen and a lot of patience, and the margin on a £3.80 croissant is not what anyone would call generous. The reason we do it anyway is that a croissant made with laminated dough and good butter is a different thing from one that arrived frozen on a van.

The lamination process ¶

Lamination is the process of folding butter into dough repeatedly to create thin alternating layers. Each fold doubles the number of layers. A standard croissant dough goes through three sets of folds, producing 27 layers of butter and dough. When the croissant bakes, the water in the butter turns to steam and pushes the layers apart, creating the characteristic honeycomb interior.

The butter has to stay cold throughout the process or it melts into the dough rather than staying in distinct layers. In a small kitchen without a proofer or a sheeter, this means working quickly and putting the dough back in the fridge between folds. In summer this is harder than in winter.

The three-day schedule ¶

Day one: mix the dough, let it rest overnight in the fridge. Day two: laminate the dough with the butter block, complete the folds, cut and shape the croissants, leave them to prove overnight in the fridge. Day three: take them out at 5:30am, let them come to temperature for about an hour, then bake at 190 degrees for 18 minutes.

The almond croissants are made from croissants that didn't sell the day before. They're split, filled with frangipane, topped with flaked almonds, and baked again. This is the traditional method and it's also a practical one: nothing goes to waste.

What can go wrong ¶

The most common problem is butter that's too cold and shatters during lamination rather than bending with the dough. The fix is to beat the butter block with a rolling pin until it's pliable but still cold, which takes longer than it sounds. The second most common problem is over-proofing, which produces a croissant that's puffy but hollow rather than layered. The timing varies with the temperature of the kitchen, which in an old stone building varies quite a bit.

The croissants are on the counter from about 7:45 most mornings. The almond ones go fastest.