Construction of a Sweet Life

ARTISAN BREADS AND VIENNOISERIE

August 1, 2013

Today we completed the remaining two turns of the croissant dough. Once that was completed the Chef provided a demonstration of the different ways we could make up the croissant dough.

The first demonstration was a simple square croissant with chocolate filling. The dough was cut into squares.

Chocolate chips were then placed in the center of the dough.

The dough was then folded over and the seam placed at bottom.

The next demonstration, the Chef used a special cutter to cut the dough into triangle shapes.

He then demonstrated how to roll a croissant properly.

Fold the end up

Hold the end and stretch the dough

Roll the dough up pushing both hands outward like you are swimming

He always make things look so easy but it definitely takes practice to get them to roll properly and look like the picture above. It is also became more difficult once we added fillings to the mix, which included almond paste and pizza sauce, pepperoni and cheese.

Almond Paste Filling

Almond Croissant

Pizza Filling

Pizza Croissant

The next demonstration was a circle cut out topped with cherry filling.

Then he used a special tool to cut lattice into the dough.

The lattice cut dough was placed on top of the cherry filling and separated.

Then the lattice was cut out with the same cutter used as for the base.

The next demonstrations were some specialty cuts into the dough.

Braid Cut

Blueberry Filling

Braided Croissant

Fold and cut triangle in dough, then open and twist sides and place on top

Apple and Streusel Topping

Cut half circle in center and fold in half

Cream Cheese and Apricot Filling

The last demonstration was cheese sticks.

Roll out dough, top with Parmesan and fold in half

Cut in strips and top with more Parmesan

Twist each strip

After demonstrations, we finished making up the croissant, proofed and baked them. The finished products turned out great.

The group favorite was the pizza croissant but I did not get a chances to try that one. My favorites of the ones I did try of course were the chocolate croissant and the cherry croissant.