I started this croissant-making project many months ago in March (longer than I recommend keeping croissant dough in the freezer but, hey, I forgot about it! I know - lame excuse.... but true! I only rediscovered its presence when going through the recent freezer inventory). I have made it before from a cooking class I attended many years ago but hadn't had the urge to make it recently until I saw the recipe and article by Jeffrey Hammelman in the pages of Fine Cooking (issue #97). Fine Cooking always has the best photos and recipes... I wish they would come out with a vegetarian version because i've never made anything from there that wasn't a big win. It's like guaranteed tried-and-trues every single time. My mouth waters as just the utterance of the words fine and cooking said together. And if I see it in the mail? Forget about it. I must drop everything and browse through it. I've thrown many issues of magazines in the recycling bin (including most of my coveted Bon Appetits, which was my favorite food mag for a long time at one point in my life - before kids!!) but NEVER a Fine Cooking!!
It is at this stage that it can be frozen (though not for 8 months, please) or refrigerated until you are ready to roll it out and cut it.
So this is what my table looked like yesterday afternoon at around 3:15ish.
I didn't roll it out as long as the recipe said to because I don't have a surface that long to do it and felt too lazy to cut it in half and roll two sheets out separately so I had fewer croissants than the recipe would normally yield and that's okay with me.
The kids helped with rolling the croissants up. They particularly liked making the chocolate ones (we put a about a tablespoon of chocolate chips at the widest part of the triangle before rolling those up. I made about half and half. I prefer savory but everyone else in my family prefers sweet (Jessi and Mike each had one warmed up for breakfast and they both loved it). When they came out of the oven they were swimming in butter. I'm not sure if this is how it normally goes so I guess I'm going to have to do this project all over again to see how it turns out when you follow the timing on the instructions (and I'd like to try one that uses partial whole wheat, of course. I'm sure my kids and husband would roll their eyes at this). But before I tackle that again my thoughts turn to sufganiyot (donuts for Chanukah), Chanukah roll-out cookies, and gerbet macarons (unrelated but on my mind nonetheless!). All the presents are wrapped and we are counting down until Friday night (the first night of Chanukah).
