Croissants

One of the things I often miss at breakfast is a nice big croissant, with ham and honey and a large latte.

My soul cries whenever I go to a supermarket and all I find is those small, flaky, butter croissants (yes, I know that is what croissants are meant to be)... however, my favourite type of croissants are the doughy ones, more like brioche rolled into croissant shapes.

Most Portuguese bakeries, cafés and supermarkets sell them... in the UK I've never seen them :(

So... I tried to make my own.

I got inspiration from a recipe I found at Nárwen's Cuisine.
I'm not very good at following recipes, so I think I might have deviated a bit somewhere along the line... still, the end result was pretty much acceptable and I will have another ago in the future.

• 4 cups of flour (I used self-raising)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (I will use fast action yeast next time I do them)
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 3 tablespoons of milk

Warm a cup of milk in a pan and add baking powder, mix it and wait for it to dissolve.

In a large bowl combine flour, oil, sugar, salt and egg. Then add the warm milk with baking powder into the mixture.

It's time to get dirty hands and knead the dough until elastic and smooth.

Cover well with a cloth and let the dough rest for an hour.

Now... the dough should rise and double its volume. Mine didn't do a think... Oh well, I carried on anyway.

(I will use fast action yeast next time)

Sprinkle flour on your worktop and roll out dough (I don't have much space, so I divided the dough in three parts).

After flattening the dough, use a knife or a pizza cutter into long 'triangles'.

(The one in the middle is actually too big, so I cut it in half - didn't take photo because I couldn't be bothered to wash my hands again to hold the camera)

Move the widest bit of the triangle towards you and roll the dough into croissants.

Some ended up prettier than others, but hey ho!

Line a tray with some parchment paper and place the croissants with the 'end of the triangle' touching the tray.

At this stage, you're meant to cover the croissants with a cloth and let the dough rise again for 30 minutes. Because my dough rested for one hour and didn't rise at all - I didn't bother and cracked on with it!

Beat one egg yolk with three tablespoons of milk and brush the croissants. 

Bake them for 20-25 minutes in pre-heated oven at 180ºC.

(I didn't roll two croissants and just left them as balls as an experiement)

As expected, they didn't grow much... but flavour wise, they were nice! I will definitely do them again but use fast action yeast and pray for the best.

Enjoy them as you wish, I had this one with cheese and quince jam.

Until next time :)