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Last week, I made croissants. Everything was working properly until I reached the baking step.

First, I used convection settings and it was too hot, the butter was oozing and almost caught on fire. Then, I used regular settings. While the temperature was better, the butter was still oozing and the dough was swimming in a pool of melted butter.

  • Is the oozing to be expected?
  • Is there something to do to avoid that?
  • What settings are more appropriated for croissants?

Edit: I don't know if the rule of thirds applies in my recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients:

  • 15g of yeast
  • 15cL of water
  • 15cL of lukewarm milk
  • 500g of flour
  • 10g of salt
  • 40g of sugar
  • 250g of butter

I set the temperature to 220°C on my oven. First in convection mode then in regular mode.

@droidnation mentioned that I should wait for 30 minutes between folding steps and to put the dough in the fridge during that period. I skipped since my recipe does not mention it. I probably need a better recipe.

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    I'm by no means a croissant expert, but the word "oozing" suggests two things to me: 1) there's way too much butter in the dough; or 2) the heat wasn't high enough to evaporate the water in the butter. Since you say the butter almost caught fire, I'm inclined to think #1 is a good place to start. It would be helpful if you could post the recipe you used, and the temperatures you tried.
    – senschen
    Commented Mar 28, 2017 at 13:01

1 Answer 1

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As a regular croissant maker, and reading lots of croissant recipes from different french chefs, they all say the same information: the butter quantity should be the third of the doughs weight.

So if your dough measure about 900 grams. The butter used should be 300 grams.

I think you added a lots of butter into your dough and you didn't rest the dough enough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes between each folding step.

UPDATE

As a personal experience, to prevent butter from melting even before baking, let the shaped croissant rest at room temperature for couple of hours. Pop it up into the fridge for 30 minutes, then bake it.

This will prevent the butter from quickly melting and ruining the croissant layers. Usually, you should use European butter as it contain less amount of water. Try some french AOP butter (if you can find it), and the result would be different than using the commercial butter.

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  • Quality croissants generally have 50% butter not 33%. Of course recipes and preferences differ, but artisan bakeries are unlikely to go below 50% butter.
    – user50726
    Commented May 14, 2019 at 21:43
  • @aris why some recipes call for long kneading and other not ? What would be the difference ?
    – alim1990
    Commented May 15, 2019 at 5:20
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    Long kneading will work the gluten and make it harder to roll out the croissant and could also make it tougher/chewier. I would knead no more than three to five minutes. You don't need much initial gluten development as much of that happens during the laminating process. Perhaps if the flour is very weak (low protein/gluten) it would make sense to knead it more than stronger flour.
    – user50726
    Commented May 15, 2019 at 17:03
  • I meant 50% of the weight of the flour.
    – user50726
    Commented May 16, 2019 at 17:36
  • @aris - 50% of the weight of the flour is one third, or saying there's twice as much flour as butter
    – Megha
    Commented May 20, 2019 at 4:22

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