Sourdough Croissants

I have got my White Sourdough starter to behave, just look at it this morning,

Looks pretty active to me, so I've refreshed it and put it in the fridge. Yesterday I started croissants with it, and left them overnight to rise.

I folded the butter into the dough and got about 30 layers into it before shaping, 

The little nicks are to help in shaping.

As you will see they rose alright overnight and after an egg wash baked in 20 minutes.

They tasted pretty good as well.

And the recipe :

For the dough

70g leaven

143g milk

57g melted butter

238g plain flour

Pinch of salt

7g sugar

100g cold butter

For the egg wash

1 egg

1tbsp milk

1 tsp sugar

Feed your 100% hydration starter the day before you want to make the croissants.

Next day, mix 70g starter with the milk – warm but not hot. Add the melted butter then the flour, salt and sugar and mix. Knead for a few minutes to make a dough. Place in a rectangular container, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge (mine was there for a couple of hours).

Leave the 100g butter on the counter to soften up a bit.  Then place it between two pieces of greaseproof paper and using a rolling pin flatten it to form a square that is about 12cm x 12cm  and 0.5 cm thick.  Put this into the fridge and let it harden.

To make Croissants you need to get layers and layers of butter between layers and layers of dough.  Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out to a rectangle that is a little more than twice as big as your piece of butter.  Place the butter on one half of the dough then fold the other half of the dough over the butter so that it is completely covered by the dough.  Press the edges of the dough together to seal.

Roll out into a thin rectangle and fold it up like a letter and roll it out again and fold it up like a letter.  Place back into the container and back into the fridge. Repeat this process four times, with an hour in between each time.

The final time, roll out the dough to make a strip about 15cm wide and 45 cm long. Cut this into 5 pieces, and then cut each piece across diagonally to form 10 elongated triangles. Make the croissants by rolling the dough up from the wide end towards the tip.

These need to be left to rise – I left mine covered in the unheated kitchen overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Make the egg wash and brush the croissants with it. Bake for 20 minutes or until the croissants turn a nice golden colour.