The Folding

“With enough butter, anything is good”

- Julia Child

At the end of our last episode I wrote a piece called “The Moments of Happiness”. The hypothesis I put forward is the croissant pastry, it’s very existence, tells us that the human race is worth saving. There is great beauty in the world and, remarkably, you can eat it. It was a source of comfort for me.

Two days later the world ended.

Well, in a manner of speaking it did anyway. When we left Madrid there were only 9 reported cases of Covid in the country. You know the story today. We were lucky.

The picture above shows La Mallorquina. It is a pastry shop that was founded in 1894 and sits on the corner of Puerta Del Sol, the main square. It was right beside our Air BnB and we spent every morning there. Inside is a wonderland of pastries and fine coffee all freshly made. The croissants here are the stuff of legend. All of it for a reasonable price. The place is paradise.

Today, the square is empty with armored Police vehicles in front of the shop.

But this is not a story about the plague outside. This is a story of something I promised I would learn to do. I am going to make croissants from scratch! I am going to try to unfold the secrets of this delicate pastry and see if I can find a moment of happiness in this locked down world.

What makes this interesting is I truly have no idea what I am doing. I have said before that I married well. Colleen is blessed with prodigious talent in the kitchen and I am inherently lazy. She would effortlessly make dishes of such delight, I felt “why bother?” I was also so busy with work that I rarely had the time or energy to focus on it.

The years passed and habits evolved into character flaws. So when I retired and had more time on my hands I was determined to right this wrong. Gradually I have wandered into the kitchen and tried cooking more and more but I am still woefully unprepared.

So aren’t croissants hard to make?. It would appear so. I have one naysayer in particular who told be “That’s foolish, try something easy or just buy them.” It’s probably true.

But I reject this notion. You see, I love croissants. As I have said, I think they are little works of art; delicate, fragile, flakey works of art. Why paint by numbers when you can try a Rembrandt?

A little history -

Croissants are classically associated with French cuisine. But they are not French. The pastry, according to baking lore, started in Austria. It was called a Kipferl and goes back as far as the 13th century. It was denser than modern croissants, shaped like a moon, sweet and served with nuts. It was considered a “Morning pastry”.

Kipferl

At the turn of the 17th century a recipe appeared in a book by Fransois Pierre de La Varonne for “Pate Feuilletee”. We call it today “Puff pastry”

Marie Antionette

Another author writes , “A more romantic tale from the 18th century, tells a story of the croissant often attributed to Marie Antoinette. The Archduchess of Austria was known not to eat at royal dinners, only to sneak away and eat and drink the sweets and coffee of her country. Her love of kipferls and christening of the kipferl as the “croissant” is rumored to have brought it in to fashion in the high society France of the time. As pastry was reserved only for high society and royalty the credibility of this story could carry some weight.”

The first verified historical evidence of the croissant did not show up until the late 19th century. August Zang had a pastry shop called Boulangerie Viennoise in an upscale area of Paris. He wanted to sell treats from his native Austria. Remember, Marie Antionette was Austrian, not French. Finally a French baker named Sylvain Claudius Goy would pen a recipe in 1915 that would become the method modern croissants are cooked.

So why are they so hard? I didn’t know. I will show you my journey.

There are lots of variations on how to do this. They all have central themes, making a puff pastry dough where you incorporate large amounts of butter into the dough, folding to create layers, and patience. You need a lot of time for the dough to rest.

The journey I chose would take me 24 hours and I cut corners doing it.

So we begin - I know people who are bakers. They are good at what they do. Do not let anyone tell you that baking is not a serious skill. You need a deft touch to know how to handle dough. You need knead it just enough, but not too much. You have to add your components flour, sugar, butter, yeast, milk, and salt at different times or it ruins.

I screwed up almost immediately. I simply dumped all of the ingredients in a bowl and pressed “Start” on the mixer. What I got was a gloppy, sticky mess. I wasn’t ten minutes into my 24 hour LeMans Race and already had to take a Pit Stop.

“Colleen!," I called.

She came and helped me put the dough ingredients and then gracefully stepped back. As she left the kitchen she saw the pounds of butter I had sat out,

“You know you are Lactose intolerant”, she said, “This is going to hurt your stomach”

“Every artist suffers for their passion,” I replied.

She shrugged and left me to my work.

The second time the dough came out great. This portion of the recipe is called the Détrempe.

The Beurrage is the next step. This part refers to the butter. You need European butter or it will not taste right. The reason European pastries taste so good is largely due to their butter. It has a higher and richer fat content. You smash almost two cups, my stomach hurts typing this, of butter into an 8”x8” square.

Then it’s time to fold the Beurrage into the Détrempe. You roll out your dough into a square and fold it over the butter like a parcel.

Now comes patience. You leave it alone for up to 8 hours so the yeast will work to create the layers. What follows are ‘The folding”. There are 4 of these, you can do more. You let the dough rest for several hours, then trifold it over itself, roll it out, rinse and repeat. It is these folding episodes followed by the periods of rest that allows the yeast to work, spreads out the butter, and creates the layers we know and love in the pastry.

I know I didn’t roll it it smooth enough on a couple of folds and in some places the butter burst out of its doughy prison. There is a craft here. I am learning.

Finally, after 4 folds, 8 rolls, and greater than 18 hours of letting the dough rest it was time to bake. Once you reach this point there are so many variations you can employ. I cut the triangles, notched them appropriately and rolled several plain croissants.

As if their can be such a thing as a “plain” croissant.

Then I added cheese to some and to others, baking chocolate to create Pan Chocolats with sprinkled sugar.

Finally into the oven and 15 minutes later- Voila!

Was it work? Yes, it was. Were they perfect? No, but they were mine. Would I recommend it every day? No.

My naysayer was wrong. As I worked the dough and butter I could feel my creation come to life. The translucent butter mixed into a maelstrom just below the surface of the tan soft dough. I came to understand what I had been missing in the kitchen all these years. It opened my eyes to my wife’s world. Such beauty was to be found here and I loved her even more as I folded my dough. It was a moment of happiness. It was worth the journey.

The world is good. It is also delicious.