Croissant
A croissant is a French Viennoiserie in a crescent shape made from a laminated yeast dough that sits between a bread and a puff pastry.
It is a buttery, flaky, Viennoiserie inspired by the shape of the Austrian kipferl, but using the French yeast-leavened laminated dough. Croissants are named for their historical crescent shape. The dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a thin sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry.
Crescent-shaped breads have been made since the Renaissance, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly since antiquity. The modern croissant was developed in the early 20th century, when French bakers replaced the brioche dough of the kipferl with a yeast-leavened laminated dough.
In the late 1970s, the development of factory-made, frozen, preformed but unbaked dough made them into a fast food that could be freshly baked by unskilled labor. The croissant bakery, notably the La Croissanterie chain, was a French response to American-style fast food, and as of 2008, 30–40% of the croissants sold in French bakeries and patisseries were baked from frozen dough.
Croissants are a common part of a continental breakfast in many European countries.
Origin and history
The kipferl, an Austrian crescent-shaped pastry, can be dated back to at least the 13th century in Austria, and came in various shapes. The kipferl can be made plain or with nuts or other fillings.In either 1838 or 1839, an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese bakery at 92, rue de Richelieu in Paris. This bakery, which served Viennese specialties including the kipferl and the Vienna loaf, quickly became popular and inspired French imitators. The French version of the kipferl was named for its crescent shape and has become a universally identifiable shape across the world.
The earliest known recipe for the present-day croissant appears in 1905, although the name croissant appears among the "fantasy or luxury breads" in 1853. Earlier recipes for non-laminated croissants can be found in the 19th century and at least one reference to croissants as an established French bread appeared as early as 1850.
Zang himself returned to Austria in 1848 to become a press magnate, but the bakery remained popular for some time afterwards, and was mentioned in several works of the time: "This same M. Zank...founded around 1830 , in Paris, the famous Boulangerie viennoise". Several sources praise this bakery's products: "Paris is of exquisite delicacy; and, in particular, the succulent products of the Boulangerie Viennoise"; "which seemed to us as fine as if it came from the Viennese bakery on the rue de Richelieu".
By 1869, the croissant was well established enough to be mentioned as a breakfast staple, and in 1872, Charles Dickens wrote of "the workman's pain de ménage and the soldier's pain de munition, to the dainty croissant on the boudoir table".
The viennoiserie technique that now characterizes the croissant was already mentioned in the late 17th century, when La Varenne's Le Cuisinier françois gave a recipe for it in the 1680 – and possibly earlier – edition. It was typically used not on its own but for shells holding other ingredients. It does not appear to be mentioned in relation to the croissant until the 20th century.
The first recipe corresponding to the modern croissant, not only for the shape but also the texture of the dough and the taste, was published in 1906, in Paris, in Colombié's Nouvelle Encyclopédie culinaire.
Sylvain Claudius Goy was a French chef who is sometimes said to have recorded the earliest recipe of the modern croissant. His 1915 book La Cuisine Anglo-Americaine contains a croissant recipe which Frey Fine Books consider to be the first such recipe published, and they describe the recipe as having " birth to the croissant of present day". Goy's recipe uses a laminated yeast dough known in French as pâte feuilletée levée.
Culinary legends
Stories of how the kipferl – sometimes confused with the croissant – was created are widespread and persistent culinary legends, going back to the 19th century. However, there are no contemporary sources for any of these stories, and an aristocratic writer, writing in 1799, does not mention the kipferl in a long and extensive list of breakfast foods.The legends include tales that it was invented in Europe to celebrate the defeat of the Umayyad forces by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732, with the shape representing the Islamic crescent; that it was invented in Buda; or, according to other sources, in Vienna in 1683 to celebrate the defeat of the Ottomans by Christian forces in the siege of the city, as a reference to the crescents on the Ottoman flags, when bakers staying up all night heard the tunneling operation and gave the alarm.
The Islamic origin story seems to have originated with the 20th-century writer Alfred Gottschalk, who gave two versions:
For this reason, the Islamic State attempted to ban croissants during the Syrian civil war.
Variants
Uncooked croissant dough can also be wrapped around any praline, almond paste, or chocolate before it is baked, or sliced to include sweet or savoury fillings. It may be flavored with dried fruit such as sultanas or raisins, or other fruits such as apples. In France and Spain, croissants are generally sold without filling and eaten without added butter, but sometimes with almond filling.In the United States, sweet fillings or toppings are sometimes used, and warm croissants may be filled with ham and cheese, or feta cheese and spinach. In the Levant, croissants are sold plain or filled with chocolate, cheese, almonds, or zaatar. In Germany, croissants are sometimes filled with Nutella or persipan; in southern Germany, there is also a popular variety of a croissant glazed with lye. In the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the croissant is typically called a Gipfeli; this usually has a crisper crust and is less buttery than the French-style croissant.
Argentina and Uruguay
Croissants are commonly served alongside coffee for breakfast, aperitivo, or merienda. They are referred to as medialunas because of their shape and are typically coated with a sweet glaze. Another variant is a medialuna de grasa, which is not always sweet.Italy
A cousin of the croissant is the Italian cornetto or brioche. These variants are often considered to be the same, but that is not completely true: the French version tends to be crispy, whereas an Italian cornetto or brioche is usually softer. Furthermore, the cornetto vuoto is commonly accompanied by variants with filling, which include crema pasticciera, apricot jam or chocolate cream. They often come covered with powdered sugar or other toppings. Cornetto with cappuccino at the bar is one of the most common breakfasts in Italy.Poland
On 11 November, St. Martin's Day is celebrated in the Polish region of Greater Poland, mainly in its capital city Poznań. On this day, the people of Poznań purchase and eat considerable amounts of sweet, crescent-shaped pastries called rogale świętomarcińskie. They are made specially for this occasion from puff pastry filled with ground white poppy seeds, almonds, raisins, and nuts.Portugal
The first type of Portuguese croissant is similar to the French, and can be plain or filled with custard, chocolate, fruit jam, or a typical Portuguese cream made of egg yolk and sugar, "doce de ovo". It is customary for these to also have powdered sugar on top. The second version has a similar consistency to brioche and is commonly eaten with ham and cheese. Sometimes this type is also served like toast, with a spread of butter. While the first type of croissant is considered sweet and is eaten during breakfast or tea, the second type is a more filling meal and is usually considered a sandwich and often prepared for picnics or as travel food. Both types share the same name but are typically found in different bakeries: the sweet croissant is more commonly found in Portuguese pâtisseries and the brioche croissant is usually found in coffeehouses.Turkey
A pastry with croissant shape is the Turkish ay çöreği. It is filled with cinnamon, walnut, hazelnut, cacao and raisin. Its rectangular shape variant is known as pastiç or İzmir çöreği. It is generally eaten during breakfast or with tea.Overview of manufacturing
The first step of manufacturing croissants is the "predough" formation. To prepare predough, flour, water, in-dough fat, yeast, salt, and sugar are mixed together in a single step. Typically, croissant predough is mixed in a relatively cool environment, for a longer time than other pastries. The ideal temperature of the dough should be around, to best hydrate the ingredients. In comparison to the mixing of bread dough ingredients, pastry predough is considered underdeveloped in that mixing is stopped as soon as the dough appears homogeneous, to allow for further dough development in the next step.The second step is the lamination process. Lamination is necessary to produce multilayered dough with alternating layers of predough and fat. Generally, there are two methods for folding fat into the dough: the English method and the French method. In the English method, one fold results in two fat layers and three dough layers. After spreading out predough, roll-in fat is flattened to a similar thickness as the predough and spread over two-thirds of the surface of the laminated predough. The exposed third of predough is then folded over half of the roll-in fat, while the other end is folded on top. In the French method, one fold results in one fat layer and two dough layers. After spreading out the predough and putting a layer of roll-in fat over the center surface of the dough, the corners of the predough are folded toward the middle of the fat. Croissant dough is typically laminated until 16–50 fat layers are obtained. The optimal number of layers can be determined by balancing certain crumb properties with specific volume. On one hand, a low number of layers yields large specific heights as well as irregular crumb structure with large voids. On the other hand, a large number of relatively thin layers leads to interconnections between different dough layers as well as less dough lift.
After lamination, the dough is formed into its famous crescent shape. First, the laminated dough is cut into triangles of the desired size. The triangles are then rolled with three-and-a-half to four full turns, and finally, the ends of the roll are curved inwards to form a crescent.
The third step is the fermentation process. Croissants are different from other puff pastries in that they include yeast, which, during proofing, increases the dough volume. Ideally, the optimum croissant quality is achieved at a yeast level of 7.5%, with a proof time of 60 minutes at. The croissants are finished proofing when the dough has expanded by two-and-a-half times its original volume.
The fourth step is the baking process. Also known as "pastry lift" or "dough lift", the dough expands as water is converted to steam, thus increasing the pressure between each dough layer. As a result, the croissant dough rises up to yield its characteristic flaky texture. Depending on the type of oven used and specific size of the croissant, the baking time can range from 10 to 20 minutes and the oven temperature can be set anywhere from.
The final steps are the cooling and storage of the croissant. Croissants are generally not stored for very long and are typically consumed soon after baking.