This is a guide to incorporating butter in for both puff pastry and for croissants you need to plasticise your butter. The butter needs to be cold. Ideally about 5C
Shape the butter into a nice flat rectangle about 20cm x 8cm and 1cm thick by placing it between two sheets of plastic or your silicone folded in half, and literally bash it into the right shape. Remember not too bash it too hard!
Now you are ready for your first single fold.
Remove the dough from the fridge and leave on the side for about 10 minutes.
To shape the dough: flatten the dough slightly with your palm. Then shape the dough into a square roughly three times the width of the butter this will be about 20cm x 24cm and 1 cm thick.
Place the butter in the centre of the square of dough and fold both sides into the middle. The two sides of the dough will meet use your fingers to push the dough together to create a seal that bonds the two side together to make a seam.
Seal the two ends.
TURN 1
- Role the dough a long rectangular shape about one centimetre thick.
- Fold the bottom part of the rectangular dough to the centre, and then fold the other part on top.
- You should have three rectangular pieces of dough piled on top of each other; this is your first turn.
- Cover the dough with plastic and place it in the refrigerator for 20 -30 minutes.
TURN 2
- After 30 minutes remove the dough from the fridge and repeat the roll and fold. This is called a single turn. Return to the fridge.
TURN 3
- After 30 minutes repeat the roll and fold. again Return to the fridge.
- FOR croissants you are now ready for shaping
- For puff pastry do 3 more.
A GREAT TIP.
This might sound a little strange, but if you look at the shape of your dough it will resemble a book. The open seams are the pages on one side and the fold is the spine of the book. If you can always keep the book in the same direction as they way in which you would read it i.e. with the spine on your left and the pages on your right then you will always roll with the grain. This will always ensure that you get the most open structure possible as you are optimising the way in which the gluten strands run and align themselves.
Return to your recipe…
Shaping Croissants & Pan au Chocolat