Quick Chocolate Croissants Recipe

Croissant dough can be is a bit time consuming, it’s a similar method to making your own puff pastry except you use yeast and also have to prove the dough. I’m not the most patient of cooks and I always cheat when making puff pastry and do not leave it to rest in between each ‘roll & turn’ in the fridge. Instead I plough ahead and get all the rolls & turns in and then give it the minimal of time to rest before using it and it always comes up fine. So, I decided what can be done with puff pastry can surely be done with croissants so I decided to experiment! My aim was to make and bake the dough under two hours, the reason for this is I wanted to introduce a quick method into a class so everyone to have a go. Normally croissants require an over night rest of the dough and quite a few more hours before they finally come out of the oven. These croissants I made & baked in two hours and they tasted perfect, where light with lots of soft layers and flaky on the outside. You could still rest the dough overnight if you had the time, yeast dough is always tastier if it is given longer to prove but these are a perfect quick fix for those with limited time. Well relatively quick!

Ingredients

7g (1 pkt ) yeast
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup warm milk (first amount)
200g cold hard butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2.5 cups plain flour
1 egg
1/2 cup warm water (second amount)
1 tbsp water

Method

Heat oven to 180C.
Combine yeast and warm water, stirring to dissolve yeast Allow to sit for about 10 minutes.
Add 1/2 of flour, then add warm milk and sugar and whisk until smooth. Cover bowl and rest  for 20 minutes in a warm place ( I place mine on the stove top while the oven is heating up).
Combine remaining flour with butter.
Pour yeast batter into flour mixture, then fold together with a spatula enough to moisten flour without breaking butter pieces.
Turn the dough onto lightly floured surface.
Pat dough down and roll into a 18″ x 12″ rectangle, if the dough is too sticky, sprinkle with flour.
Fold 1/3 of dough toward center and then fold from other side, overlapping the first 1/3. Lift folded dough off work surface, and scrape surface clean.
Sprinkle work area with flour and repeat, rolling then folding as above 4-5 more times to ensure all the butter is combined into the dough and there are no more lumps. Dough must still be cold at this stage, if not, freeze for 15 minutes.
Cut dough into 8 equal parts. Each part will make 2 croissants.
Work with one piece at a time, keeping the rest of the dough in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Roll each piece individually into rectangles, ¼ inch thick.
Cut into two pieces diagonally to form 2 triangles.
Roll the dough up from wide end to point. Place on an un-greased baking tray. Curve ends to crescent shape.
For chocolate croissants place a small square of chocolate at the wide end of the dough and then roll to point.
Beat egg with water to form a wash and brush croissants with this and set them aside in a warm place to prove 2 times original size .
Bake for about 10 minutes until puffed and brown.