CROISSANTS

CROISSANTS:
Ingredients:
500 grms all purpose flour
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
90g, superfine sugar
1 tablespoon salt
300ml, cup warm milk
340g, butter, at room temperature
1 egg, beaten with 2 tbsp water for egg wash, or use milk as egg wash.
some extra flour

Method:

Put the flour into a big bowl.. Add the salt, sugar, milk and yeast. Mix well and knead until it has a smooth elastic consistency.
Cover the bowl with the towel and let it rise until it doubles in size. This should take 1½ to 2 hours.

While dough is rising, put a sheet of plastic wrap onto your work surface. Place the butter on top and cover it with a second sheet of plastic wrap.
Flatten it with your hands.
Roll it into a rectangle about (20 X 25 cm) with your rolling pin and place it into the fridge to chill.

Wait until the dough has doubled in size , about 90 minutes , sprinkle it with a little bit of flour. Punch out the air with your knuckles and place it onto a floured work surface.
Dust the dough with flour and roll it out into a large rectangle that is big enough to wrap around the sheet of chilled butter in thirds (about 25 x 60 cm). Lift the dough off the table and dust the surface with flour before putting it down again.

Unwrap the chilled butter and place it onto the upper part of dough. Fold the dough around the butter in thirds to enclose it completely. Lift the dough and sprinkle the table with flour.

Rotate the rectangle of dough so that you can hold a roller parallel to the open edges, . Roll it into another long rectangle, as done earlier.
Fold the dough into thirds, brushing off the excess flour . This completes the first turn.

Now wrap it in plastic wrap and place it into the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Wait until the end of the 30 minutes, sprinkle your working surface with flour. Unwrap the dough and place it onto the work surface. . Dust it with a sprinkling of flour and roll it into another long rectangle, as done earlier. Fold, brush and wrap, exactly as before. This now completes the second turn.
Place it back into the fridge for another 30 minutes.

Remove, roll and fold for the third and final turn. Make sure that the dough is well wrapped before placing into the fridge once more to chill.

Once chilled, cut the unwrapped dough in half on a floured surface. You can chill one half, while shaping the other half.

Dust the dough with some flour and roll one half of the dough into a rectangle. Re-flour the surface when necessary and continue to roll until the dough is roughly less than (5 mm) thick.
Flour the surface and trim the edges of the dough neatly.

Cut it into triangle shapes
Take the bottom of the triangle at its widest part and, using your hands, tightly roll it up into a croissant shape

Place the croissants onto a greased baking tray.
Cover them with a clean plastic cling and leave to double in size. Set the oven to 190 degrees C.

Once the croissants have risen, remove the plastic cling. Very gently brush them all over with the egg wash, if using or milk wash.
Place them into the center of the oven. Bake them for about 15 minutes.

Wait until they are a golden brown then remove them from the oven. Your croissants are now ready to serve!