#125 - How NOT to make croissants

In which I remember why I don't make puff pastry or croissants at home
We had a couple of weeks when it was freezing here.  Mind you, it's all relative - it's not the same kind of freezing as it has been on the East Coast and other areas of the US, but I could have used a little bit of that tonight.

After thawing out my dough from yesterday, I rolled it out and shaped it tonight.  That is to say, I attempted to do so.  The kitchen was a bit on the warm side but who cares, I was in a long sleeved shirt.  Until it got warm trying to roll out the dough.  I had to let it rest several times during the rolling out and it kept sticking to the (I guess warm) marble and...my hands.  You can actually see all the tears in the pastry and in some places I could actually see the butter either through the pastry or oozing out through the tears (see photo above right).  All I can do now is hope and pray that it will come out ok tomorrow morning.

Hot hands are bad for pastry
I forgot about the fact that my hands tend to run warm which is why my pastries and breads tend to have problems when I have to handle them.  The only thing I didn't do was put them in an ice bath because I wanted to be able to feel the knife when I had to cut the croissants.  Blood is not a standard ingredient and I like to have my hands as intact as possible, given the abuse they have been taking.  (Yes, just boiled water and a metal pan that has been on the stove is a little warm.  Not as warm as melted sugar but still warm...)

User error?  Most likely!

Yes, that is flour - from leaning against the bench while rolling

This is a slightly smaller recipe than the one we did at school so there is a little less dough but I have a feeling I should have gotten 3 more croissants out of the batch (I have 9 ok ones and 1 weird one).  They are all shaped a bit funny and the end of the croissant got twisted on some of them so only the baking will show how they turn out.  Oh well, not all experiments can end successfully and in this case, I suspect it's user error since LM rolled and baked her croissants today - apparently they turned out well.

So until next time, if at first you don't succeed, try again.  (And if that fails, blame the materials!  Just kidding - try again until you get it right.  Now I will have to follow my own advice...)  Enjoy your repetitions!