Croissant recipe from scratch that is so easy to follow! The steps are broken up over 3 days, so you can start on a Friday and have fresh, homemade croissants on Sunday. Small batch croissant recipe makes 4 croissants.
I just finished reading ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat.’ I know, I’m 6 years behind the times. Please tell me I'm not the only one that read books WAY after they are popular!
I just finished The Hunger Games recently, also way behind the times.
Anyway, I have no idea why I read this book. I’m not looking to shed any weight.
Maybe I was looking for an excuse to drink wine at lunch AND dinner. Maybe I’m going through a Francophile phase? And then I must thank another friend for being such an enabler. She convinced me at brunch this weekend that there are, in fact, pills big enough to make someone like me conquer their fear of flying over the ocean to visit France.
My point being that I read a book about how to manage your weight, and all I came away with was a recipe for croissants from a real French woman.
These are not diet croissants, even though they come from a diet book. They are croissants for the woman who’s been good all week and looks forward to her weekly reward of a croissant on Sunday morning.
I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and say that if you’ve been good all week, you probably can’t be trusted around a dozen croissants. Is that just me?
I just came off another sugar detox, and I went straight to my favorite chocolate shop. I spent so much time in there that my hair smelled like chocolate-dipped sea salt caramels the rest of the day (success!). So, this recipe makes 4 good-sized croissants.
You can absolutely stretch it to 6 croissants, though they will be smaller.
I made a lot of changes to Mireille's recipe, mainly to eliminate any wishy-washy instructions (there were lots). I need clear, concise instructions for baking; a French chef, I am not.
I also changed some things that were blantantly wrong with her recipe: do not put flour in the butter layer. I don't know where she came up with that, but my sweet cousin Stephanie who is a pastry chef said that was absolutely not the way to make croissants. When I put flour in the butter layer, I ended up with crescent rolls, not croissants. Still delicious, but not my goal.
My cousin Stephanie calmed my fears about croissants by boiling it down to this: it's a yeast dough with a butter layer that is folded four times. When you think of it that way, it suddenly becomes more approachable.
Croissant Recipe--a few modifications allowed:
Mireille divided her recipe into the course of 3 days for ease. This way, you can start Friday night and eat croissants Sunday morning.
If you want to alter the recipe and replace all overnight instructions with 4 hours and try to make these in one day, go ahead. I haven't tried that, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. But as always, if you have any questions, just leave me a comment, and I will get back to you. I will post answers to questions on the site so that everyone can see them.
Homemade croissant recipe--modifications not allowed:
-unbleached flour. Please use unbleached flour, as that is what Mireille used, and that is how I developed this recipe.
-kosher salt. I normally use sea salt for baking, but Mireille used kosher. I copied her exactly because I listen to what a French woman says about baking.
Once you've mastered this small batch of croissants, be sure to make my other version: CHOCOLATE CROISSANTS!:
Homemade Croissants
Skip the bakery and make your own croissants at home.
Ingredients
- ½ cup + 1 tablespoon 2% milk, divided use
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour, divided use
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 6 tablespoons high-quality butter (European style)
- 1 large egg yolk, beaten
Instructions
DAY ONE:
- Heat ½ cup of the milk to 115-degrees Fahrenheit, and stir in the yeast until dissolved. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the flour. Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, remaining 1 cup + 1 tablespoon of the flour, and salt. Add the foamy yeast to the mixture, and knead until smooth with a wooden spoon, about 3-4 minutes. The dough will be sticky, but it will stick to itself and not the edges of the bowl. Refrigerate overnight.
DAY TWO:
- Let the butter come to room temperature.
- Remove the dough from the fridge (it should have risen some and seem bubbly). Flour a surface, and roll the dough out into a 6 x 10" rectangle. The 6" side should be closest to you.
- Spread all 6 tablespoons of the butter evenly over the rectangle, but leave about 1cm of a border on all edges.
- Fold the dough like a letter: fold the top one-third to the middle. Fold the bottom third up to the middle also. Roll the dough back into a 6 x 10" rectangle. Cover and refrigerate the rectangle of dough for 2 hours.
- Remove the dough from the fridge after 2 hours, fold it like a letter again, and then roll back out to a 6 x 10" rectangle. Place it back in the fridge for 2 hours.
- Repeat this two more times for a total of 4 folds, refrigerating for 2 hours between each fold and roll. After the last roll out, refrigerate the dough overnight.
DAY THREE:
- Remove the dough from the fridge, and roll it on a floured surface into a 10 x 10" square.
- Using a knife, cut the rectangle into 4 evenly-sized triangles. Roll the rectangles up, starting at the wide end. Roll towards the skinny tip.
- Place the rolls on a baking sheet lined with a nonstick mat, and brush with the remaining tablespoon of milk.
- Let the rolls rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. If your kitchen is cold, let them rise for longer--they really need to double in size before baking.
- Preheat the oven to 400-degrees.
- Brush the egg yolk generously over the croissants. Be sure to get it in the nooks and crannies of the dough.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes, until very golden brown. Start checking on the rolls at 10 minutes, and shield them with foil if the edges threaten to burn. You just spent 3 days making rolls, keep an eye on them in the oven so they don't burn!
- Let cool 20 minutes, and serve.
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 142Total Fat: 1gCholesterol: 2mgSodium: 508mgCarbohydrates: 29gSugar: 13gProtein: 5g
Shadi Hasanzadenemati says
I have never heard of that book! But now I love these croissants and I would love to make them! I'm just in love with how puffy and pretty they are and how I'm going to enjoy these with some jam!
Beth @ Eat Within Your Means says
The fact that you read anything beyond Facebook and cookbooks or food blogs means you're WAY ahead of the times compared to me. :) I can't wait to try my hand at a vegan version of these croissants, with homemade cultured butter. That makes me sound like a hippie snob (if there is such a thing), but I swear I'm not. :)
Sarah says
Can this recipe be doubled. Out of all the recipes I have looked at this one is by far the simplest one I found. They looked so yummy. Ivan in a forum and we are taking a virtual trip to Paris. Actually we are "in" Paris now so to speak. But, when I get home I wanted to be able to make these. Thanks for your site.
Christina Lane says
Hi Sarah! Hope you're enjoying your trip!
I've never tried to double the recipe...I scaled it down from Mireille..you might try googling her recipe and then make the changes I suggest? Best of luck!
gokce says
can i use all purpose flour on this recipe? :( in my coutry don't sell unb.flour :(
Christina Lane says
I think so...
Carol says
Just got back from a two-week trip to Italy where I enjoyed croissants every morning for breakfast. Sitting at my kitchen table and dreaming of those flaky croissant's and came across your blog. So, I work full-time but want to enjoy croissants. Can I make two separate recipes bake one and freeze the other until I am ready to bake them? So in other words have them all rolled out into croissant shapes. And then individually freeze them until ready to bake)? Trying to save time and still enjoy these delicacies.
Christina Lane says
Yes, Carol! And welcome home :) Your trip sounds great!
Ryan says
Hi carol just finished a batch of traditional French croissants but I did not like them I hope yours won't let me down, and you have beautiful pictures.
Thien says
I just tried this recipe and I was surprised that the whole process isn't as bad as I thought. The steps were clearly outlined and I was intimidated because of the time commitment but that's the only difficult part...waiting in between each step to move on to the next one. Making the dough itself wasn't difficult.
I had problems with yeast that I believed was dead. I had tried activating it 6 times with changes in temperature each time and making sure the yeast wasn't expired. I just ended up using instant RapidRise yeast instead and added the milk in cold. It worked just fine. I also made a slab of butter using a Ziplock bag instead of spreading the butter but I pretty much did everything else as outlined.
Thank you for the recipe! It was the right amount for two people!
Christina Lane says
I'm so glad to hear it, Thien! Glad rapid rise yeast worked fine. Yeast can be finicky sometimes, especially if it's cold!
Eloisa says
Simply delicious! The croissants I always wanted to make. Thank you very much from Florianópolis city, Brazil.
Kelsey says
Hi Christina! I was looking for a good way to procrastibake and these fit the bill. Such a fun process with tasty results! Thank you for sharing - your instructions were very clear and easy to follow :)
Christina Lane says
So glad you enjoyed it, Kelsey! Thanks for writing :)
Alma Katav says
Hi,
What did you meant at "spread the butter"? The butter needs to be soft?
Thank you
Alma