Triple Raspberry Croissants

Hello, everyone! Today we will be making triple raspberry croissants! The triple comes from raspberry mousse, raspberry glaze, and finished with crushed freeze-dried raspberries, creating the perfect combination of sweet and tart.

I hope to show through this Instructable that creating croissants in a home kitchen isn't an impossible task, or anywhere near.

This recipe is best done over the course of two days. I have marked in the steps whether they are Day 1 or Day 2.

Equipment:

Stand Mixer. I use a KitchenAid stand mixer to make the detrempe (croissant dough). This is definitely not required, but it does take some of the work out of the process.

Hand Mixer. Used to make whipped cream for the mousse, you could use either a stand mixer or whisk by hand as well.

Convection Oven. I have not tested baking in a non-convection oven however I have been told a convection oven is pretty important for laminated pastries. A lot of modern ovens have this feature. If you do not have access to a convection oven I believe it would still work, you just may not get as consistent of an oven rise or color on the finished product.

Mesh Sieve. Used to remove seeds for mousse and glaze, required for best texture.

Measuring Tape/Ruler/etc with millimeter markings.

Rolling Pin.

Ambient Temperature Thermometer. Important for proofing, an instant read thermometer can be used in a pinch.

Croissants:

500g Bread flour

55g Brown sugar

10g Salt

10g Milk powder

130g Milk

160g Water

12g Dry Yeast

50g Soft butter

250g Butter for Laminating (High quality, 82%+ butterfat)

Raspberry Mousse:

6oz fresh raspberries (or frozen)

50g granulated sugar

30g fresh lemon juice

1 packet Knox gelatin

2 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

45g powdered sugar

Raspberry Glaze:

6oz fresh raspberries (or frozen)

50g granulated sugar

30g fresh lemon juice

Pinch kosher salt

5g (1 tsp) vanilla extract

Approximately 175g powdered sugar or until correct texture is achieved

I recommend making the mousse and glaze first because they are forgiving for storage in the fridge and the mousse is best if it is allowed to set before using. I made them the night before making the detrempe but you could also do it the same day.

You can speed up the process a bit by cooking all 12oz of raspberries and 1/2 cup sugar at the same time for both the mousse and glaze.

First, add the raspberries and sugar to a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. You are looking for a jam-like consistency, it should take around 3-5 minutes.

Remove from heat and press the jam through a fine mesh sieve with a rubber spatula. This process takes some time as you want as much raspberry sauce as possible. If you cooked the raspberries for both the mousse and glaze, reserve half of the sauce in a separate bowl for the glaze.

Add the lemon juice and gelatin to the remaining sauce. Mix well and return to the saucepan. At this point the gelatin will not be fully dissolved.

Return the pan to the heat and whisk continuously until the gelatin is fully dissolved, you do not want the sauce to boil. Once it is dissolved, remove from heat again and cool to room temperature.

Next, prepare the whipped cream. Add the cream, powdered sugar, and instant pudding to a bowl. Whip with your tool of choice until stiff peaks form. You want a solid whipped cream but do not over-whip and create butter.

Once the sauce is cooled, slowly add it to the whipped cream and fold in with a rubber spatula. Do this in batches, I added 1/3 of the sauce at a time. It is very important that the sauce is not hot at this stage but if it is too cool it may be too solid to blend well. Room temperature is perfect.

At this point it is done! Refrigerate to set and it will be ready the next day.

If you opted to not cook all the raspberries at the same time, just cook the raspberries and sugar the same way as you did for the mousse and pass through mesh sieve.

Add the salt, lemon juice, and vanilla extract to the raspberry sauce and mix well. Slowly add the confectioners sugar until desired texture is reached, I highly recommend sifting the sugar to ensure there are minimal clumps.

Refrigerate glaze until ready to serve.

You should make the butter block day 1 so that it can firm back up before laminating. It is important to use a high quality butter if you can source it. Unsalted Kerrygold comes highly recommended and is readily available at most grocers. In this recipe I used some 82% butterfat butter I got from my local restaurant supply store. I have also used basic Kirkland butter but the flavor from the premium butter is well worth the expense.

The easiest way I have found to make the block is with a gallon plastic bag. You are shooting for 26x16cm. You can also use parchment paper, plastic wrap, etc.

Simply bring the butter to room temperature, place in your mold of choice, roll to size. You want it to be as even as possible. Once rolled to the correct size, refrigerate.

The dough, or detrempe, must be made the day before the croissants are assembled and baked. I usually make it later in the day, shooting for 12-18hr of proofing in the refrigerator. The amount of time is forgiving, you just need to shoot for 12hr+.

It is important to use a strong, high protein bread flour. I would recommend at least 11.5% protein. My standard go-to is King Arthur bread flour, but there are many options.

First add the flour, salt, brown sugar, soft butter, and milk powder to the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl.

In a microwave safe bowl or measuring cup, add milk and water and heat until it reaches approximately 90f. Add the yeast and ensure it begins to look active. I highly recommend doing this even if you have instant yeast as it can tell you if your yeast has died. As a matter of fact, I found this to be the case during my first attempt of making these. Without "activating" it first I wouldn't have found out until it was already mixed with every other ingredient.

Once the yeast has shown activity, add it to the dry ingredients and begin mixing. In a stand mixer, specifically a KitchenAid, it takes around 10-14 minutes of mixing on medium with a dough hook to get the desired gluten development. Your goal here should be to have a dough that you can stretch without tearing. You should be able to stretch it thin enough to just start to see light through it before it tears. It is a low hydration dough so you will not get an extremely elastic result.

You can skip this next step of separating and coloring of the dough if you do not care to have bicolor croissants. If this is the case, just leave all of the dough in one ball.

Use a kitchen scale to calculate and then remove 15% of the dough. Form the remaining 85% of the dough into a tight ball and place into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and set aside at room temperature. To the 15%, add some drops of red food coloring and knead until fully incorporated. Continue to add more until the desired color is reached. For me it took around 8 drops of a high-quality red food coloring. Form this red dough into a ball and place into a separate lightly oiled covered bowl. Let both balls proof for 60 minutes at room temperature, they should approximately double in size. Place into refrigerator for at least 12 hours.

At this point it is the second day. The detrempe has been cold fermenting for atleast 12 hours, the butter is formed and in the refrigerator, the mousse is set.

It is very important that you get the kitchen/workspace cold. The colder you get it, the more working time you will have while laminating. I try for atleast 68-70f ambient and I chill the countertop with ice before starting. After the space is cold, you can begin laminating.

First, remove the butter block from the refrigerator. It is best to cut the bag open while the butter is still cold as it is more difficult once the butter starts softening. You need the butter to come up in temperature, you do not want it to come to room temperature but you want it to be moldable. You should be able to bend the block and not have it crack and break. As you will see through this Instructable, this was a mistake I made. The butter was a bit too cold and slightly fractured while laminating. As you will see, even with this mistake, the croissants came out quite nice!

Now it is time to start preparing for the first fold. You need to roll the dough to 4mm thin, start by pressing the rolling pin into the dough along the entire length of it and then roll. I find it helps to stop the butter from squeezing out, although as you can see it still doesn't eliminate it. Your goal is to keep it as symmetric as possible, but as you can see from mine it is far from perfect. 4mm is pretty thin so it will take some time, you do not want to put too much pressure. You do need to get it rolled relatively quickly however because you do not want the butter to melt before the first refrigerator rest.

Once you get it around 4mm thick it is time to do the first fold. First, brush all excess flour off and lightly wet the dough. The best way to do this is with a spray bottle set to mist, but I just very lightly wetted the dough with my hand. Take one side and fold it 1/3, and the other side 2/3. Your seam should be off-center, press the seam together. Brush off the excess flour and wet the dough again, then fold directly in half.

Once the fold is complete, cut all 3 edges you just created. Two on one side, one on the other. You should be able to see butter from all sides.

Now, roll it again but ensure you are rolling from the opposite direction as last time. In this case, roll with the cuts you just made. This time you are just trying to get it a bit thinner before chilling. 1.5cm or so is perfect to get it chilled quickly. Once it is rolled out, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 45 minutes.

After chilling it is time to roll out and do the final fold. As you can see from the photos, I flipped the dough over and rolled from there. The reason was to get the layers a bit more aligned again, it didn't really do much but you can roll from either side. Just make sure you are continuing to roll it out in the same direction you did right before putting it in the fridge. Your goal this time is 5-6mm thick.

Once you have reached the desired thickness, brush off excess flour and lightly wet the surface. This time you will fold both sides 2/3, one on top of the other. Once you have folded both sides, cut the ends again. This time you will only have two cuts to make. Once again roll out to 1.5cm to cool quicker, this time record the size of the block, and refrigerate for 45 minutes.

While that is chilling, take the red detrempe out of the fridge and roll it out to the same size as the main block. It will be pretty thing but there should be no holes. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate.

After the 45 minutes, remove the block and the red sheet from the refrigerator. Place the red sheet onto the main block and stretch to ensure it completely covers the top of the dough block. Roll out the block slightly then flip over.

Now you will roll the dough to the final size before cutting and forming the croissants. The size you should aim for is approximately 50x35cm. It will take some time to get it to this size, but once again, do not try to too quickly or too much pressure. Make sure to watch both length and width, it is best to gradually get them both to the correct size at the same time.

Once it is rolled to the correct size it is time to cut the croissants out. You want the short side of the triangle to be 10cm long. I find it easiest to mark 10cm increments from 0 on one side, and on the other side do the same thing but start 5cm from the edge. So you will have increments at 0, 10, 20, etc on one side and 5, 15, 25, etc on the other.Then use a ruler or other straight-edged tool and a pizza cutter to actually cut them out.

Place all of these slices on a tray, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

At this point, prep your oven for proofing. Place your thermometer into the oven, then place a sheet pan in the oven and pour a couple of cups of boiling water into it. Close the door and let sit for 15 minutes, then check the temperature. The ideal temperature is 79-81f. If it is in this range, leave the door shut. If it is below, add some more boiling water. If it is above, open the oven door until it is in the range.

Once the slices have been chilling for 30 minutes, remove them from the refrigerator. Now it is time to roll the croissants.

With the red side down, first brush off any excess flour and slightly wet the dough. Now, fold and lightly press the base of the triangle. Next, continue to roll the croissant. It is very important to roll them evenly, as you will see I did not do an excellent job of this. You want to roll them loose enough to not crack while proofing but tight enough to hold their form. There is some trial and error with this, for instance I did not roll them quite tight enough and it caused inconsistencies with the shapes of the finished croissants.

As you roll these out, place them on sheets lined with parchment paper. You want to be sure to place them on the tip to keep them together. I like to give them just a light press onto the sheet to make sure the tip is set well.

Once they are all rolled, cover lightly with cling wrap and place into the prepared oven. It is very important that the wrap is just lightly set on top of the croissants. They will increase in size considerably and once proofed they are very delicate. Be sure to watch your thermometer to keep the oven where it should be.

Proofing takes anywhere from 2hr to 3hr+ depending on a number of factors. You should be looking for a substantial size increase and they should jiggle when the tray is shaken slightly. They will "feel" very light and puffy when you move the tray. If your proofing chamber is within the range above, it will take atleast 2 hours. Do not be tempted to remove them soon, underproofing is an extremely easy mistake to make and it is the easiest part of the process!

Once the croissants are adequately proofed, it is time to bake. Remove the croissants from the proofing oven, along with the water tray. Preheat the oven to 400f convection.

If you decided to make bicolor croissants you will not want to eggwash them as it causes browning that will discolor the croissant. If you opted to make traditional croissants, you will want to lightly eggwash them. Make sure to only eggwash the top of the croissants and not the edges as that can hinder the amount they rise in the oven.

Remove the cling wrap and place one tray of croissants into the oven. After one minute, reduce the temperature to 350f and continue baking for 20-22 minutes or until desired color is reached. Remove from oven and let cool.

Preheat oven back to 400f and repeat process with second tray.

First, put raspberry mousse in a ziploc or pastry bag and let come to room temperature. As it warms it becomes a bit easier to work with.

Slice the croissant in half. Pipe raspberry mousse onto the bottom half of the croissant. Place top back on and drizzle raspberry glaze onto croissant. Crush freeze dried raspberries and sprinkle on top of croissant.

That's it!

I hope this instructable is helpful for anyone who wants to try their hand at making homemade croissants. It's important to remember that they don't have to be perfect, mine most certainly are not. I'd love to see any photos if someone attempts them and I am more than happy to answer any questions anyone might have!