Le Croissant

Did you know that the croissant originated from Austria and not France? The history of the croissant dates back to the 17th century, during the seige of Vienna by the Turkish Ottoman army. The story goes that since bakers had to work during the night when everyone else was sound asleep, they were able to hear the noise made by the enemy attempting to attack the city. The bakers then sounded the alarm, alerted the Viennese army and the Turkish force were then repulsed as a result. The Viennese bakers were given the honor of creating a pastry to commemorate this victory and they invented the "Hornchen" (little horn in German) which becomes the croissant we know today. Marie Antoinette, the Austrian princess who became King Louis XVI's wife, introduced the croissant to France in the 18th century.

Croissants are actually yeasted puff pastry dough made from 5 simple ingredients: flour, salt, sugar, yeast and butter. Loads and loads of butter. The technique of making croissant begins with the preparation of the détrempe which is the flour-sugar-salt-yeast-water package that encases the butter. The dough is then rolled out, folded, turned and rolled out again multiple times, creating layers and layers or butter-flour laminates.  When the yeast ferments with the layers of fat within the laminated dough, gas is released during the process, giving rise to multiple layers of light and airy pastry. The best croissant will have many, many light layers of dough that is crisp on the outside with a bread-like and slightly chewy texture on the inside. The Chef was joking with us that if we ate a croissant hot off the oven, we may feel a little light-headed and fuzzy after inhaling and consuming those gases. I have a rather sensitive taste bud and for me, the aftertaste of the by-products from this process have turned me away from many a croissant, until one day when I came across this particular one that completely blew me away. As insignificant as it may seemed back then, it was one of the reasons that helped me decide that Paris is indeed the right place to be for my new endeavor. The power of a well-made croissant should never be underestimated! There are essentially three types of croissants: croissant ordinarie, which uses vegetable fat, the croissant pâtissier, which is based on a mixture of pure butter and margarine, and the last type, croissant pur beurre which contains only butter. The first two types are typically shaped in the form of a crescent whereas the pure butter croissant is usually a straight horn shape.
As part of my project, I taste-tested croissants from Dalloyau, Poilane, Laduree, Lenôtre and Piere Hermé, mais, bien sûr. This is a belated post, no doubt, but we just made croissants in class today and I knew the time to publish this post is now..... or never.

The first croissant in the taste-test was Lenotre's. Shaped like a  straight horn, it was slightly crisp on the outer shell, somewhat chewy and "holey"on the inside and altogether not as flaky as what I had expected. The flavor was rather subtle and not enticingly buttery. The second croissant - Poilane's -was shaped in a curved crescent, more like a crab, really, with claw at both ends. Flaky, crisp exterior, much more so than Lenotre's, Poilane's croissant had a distinct bread-like interior, a texture that I really liked but alas, it lacked flavor. In fact, it tasted almost bland to me.

Laduree's mini croissant was glazed with sugar, not at all crispy as a result. In terms of texture, it was very similar to Poilane's -  flaky and bread-like. Hubby liked its flavor, which was buttery without any strong yeast aftertaste.

The next croissant was from Dalloyau. It was very flaky and fluffily huge, almost as large as Hermé's croissant, which was the largest of them all. Dallayou's croissant was extremely flaky, its skin crisp and the insides were ethereally light with evenly-distributed layers unlike some other croissants which are simply light because they are filled with nothing but holes inside. Last but not least - Hermé's croissants. Shaped distinctly in a well-puffed straight crescent, they still tasted as wonderful as I had remembered them. Flaky, fluffy, crisp on the outsides - yes, they still shatter to a million pieces when you bite into them - with the most incredibly rich and buttery bread-like texture that bounces back lightly and just didn't crunch tightly together on every bight.

I think we all know what the final verdict was, although I'm sure most of you are thinking this word by now: biased, biased, biased! There're many great croissant makers out there; I'm sure it's just a matter of personal preference, and my personal experience thus far, but for me, Hermé's croissants have really stood out amongst the crowd. It wasn't until this afternoon that I realize how a seemingly simple pastry like croissant would take one years and years to master. What seemed like a straightforward recipe and process actually requires a lot of technique in order to produce good - really good croissants. As Chef said countless times "It looks simple but.........."

I actually liked the texture and the look of my pain au chocolat and croissants today.

I could hear the crisp crunch of the exterior as I sank my teeth into one, which to me, was a good sign. There was distinct layering on the inside - again, I'm not a fan of "holey" croissants - but the texture was still light and not at all dense. There wasn't too much to shout about when it comes to flavor, unfortunately. I believe this has a lot to do with the type of butter and yeast that we used.  Although, there wasn't any of that sour aftertaste that I dislike so much,  I was hoping for a richer flavor in the croissants we baked today; I can't wait to play around with different brands of butter in my next attempt. The best part of the day was making pain au chocolat, aside from eating them, of course. The Chef overseeing our practicals today was so kind to let us use the croissant maker, a rolling machine that significantly reduced the physically demanding act of rolling out croissant dough. It was like re-enacting one of my favorite scene from the movie "It's Complicated" where Meryl Streep and Steve Martin made pain au chocolat for a late night snack. What an incredible experience to be making pain au chocolat and croissants today, then enjoy a beautiful evening (our session didn't end until 6:30pm) of munching the baked goodies. Making croissants can be complicated, but enjoying one is certainly not.