Homemade Croissants
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This Homemade Croissants recipe is so buttery, flaky, and will make your morning breakfast so much more delicious! A complete recipe guide with pictures and video to teach you to make the most perfect croissants from scratch.
Homemade Croissants
It’s been over 6 years since I have shared my croissant recipe with you and have since been pleasantly surprised to see so much croissant making success! After all, this is why I do this. Especially when it comes to baking, because many of you have never baked before or are scared to attempt to make a recipe like this.
However, I want to show you that baking is not so difficult and with a little practice anyone can be successful at it. Even when it comes to making something as decadent as these croissants! They are a labor of love, but they are so worth it and surprisingly simple to put together.
What Are Croissants?
Croissants are flaky, layered French pastry in the shape of a crescent. They’re loved by everyone and for a good reason! We’re talking cloud-like puff pastry, buttery, flaky, yeasty, chewy bread. It really is one of the most decadent things you can eat.
Croissant dough gets its many layers as a result of “laminating” the dough. This means we are rolling and folding over and over, giving you many thin layers of dough and butter. As you bake them, the butter melts and gives off steam. This puffs each paper-thin layer of dough up giving your croissants hundreds of buttery layers.
What Ingredients Are in Homemade Croissants?
When it comes to bread making, the ingredients you need for these croissants is super basic. Keep scrolling for the full recipe and amounts needed. Here is what you’ll need:
- Milk – I used 2% milk for this recipe, but it really doesn’t matter if you use a different fat content.
- Brown sugar – Adding a bit of sugar to your croissants pairs so well with the buttery flavor! It will also help give a bit more crunch to the outside of each croissant.
- Active dry yeast – Make sure to double check that you are using active dry yeast rather than instant yeast. If your yeast does not foam up after step #1, your yeast is dead and the croissants will not turn out. Buy a new jar or package and store it in the freezer so it’ll last longer.
- All-purpose flour – While you can use bread flour in this recipe, I find it’s much more convenient to use all-purpose. We all have it in out pantries, and it makes fantastic bread. The difference is that bread flour has a higher protein content, resulting in better gluten formation.
- Salt – You can adjust the salt in this recipe to suit your own sodium preference. I wouldn’t leave it out, though. That touch of salt really brings out the buttery flavor.
- Butter – Make sure you use unsalted! I only ever cook with unsalted butter so that I have full control of the salt content. Since most of the flavor of these croissants come from the butter, make sure to find a good quality brand.
- Egg – The egg doesn’t actually make it into the dough! This will actually be used for an egg wash. That’s what gives our croissants a glossy and golden brown exterior.
How to Make Croissants
- Bloom the yeast: In the bowl of your mixer, add the warm milk, brown sugar, and yeast. Give it a quick stir with a fork or small whisk and let it sit for 5-10 minutes, until the yeast foams up well.
- Make the dough: To your bloomed yeast, add the flour and salt. Use the dough hook on your mixer and let the dough knead for about 5 minutes on low speed. The dough should turn out nice, soft, elastic, and slightly sticky. Because of varying environment conditions, you may need more flour than I used. Add 1 tbsp at a time until your dough feels perfect. Knead the dough by hand for a few minutes, then add it back to the bowl. Wrap the bowl well with plastic and let the dough sit in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Prepare the butter: Arrange the sticks of butter on a sheet of plastic wrap horizontally. Lay another piece of plastic over the sticks, and use a rolling pin to flatten the sticks until you have approximately an 8×5 inch rectangle. Put the butter, still wrapped in plastic, in the fridge until the dough is ready.
- Laminate the dough:Â Laminating dough is the process of folding butter into the dough many times, which is what creates all those layers. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it to a 16×10 inch rectangle. Place your butter in the center, and fold the edges of the dough rectangle over to cover the butter completely. Roll the dough out so it’s back to 16×10 inches, then fold it letter-style into thirds. Wrap the dough with plastic and place it in the fridge for an hour. I like to repeat this process a total of 5 times giving us a total of 729 layers. Yes, that’s right! 729 layers!Â
- Bake the croissants: Roll the dough out, one last time, until you have a long rectangle about 1/4″ thick. I like to cut the dough into thirds to make this part easier. Slice the dough into long triangles, and roll each one starting at the wide end until you have a crescent shape. Brush with a lightly beaten egg, and bake on a parchment paper lined sheet for 8-12 minutes at 400F, then turn the oven down to 375 and bake for another 8-12 minutes.
How to Make Pain Au Chocolate Aka Chocolate Croissants
For fillings, you can either cut the dough in triangles to keep the crescent shape or you can leave the dough at long 4″ wide strips. Place a piece of chocolate at the end of the dough, and then roll it up until it’s nicely wrapped with the strip of croissant dough.
Don’t be afraid to try other fun fillings for your croissants! Try out your favorite fillings. I love using Nutella, jam, peanut butter, or even savory fillings such as ham and cheese, or pesto and chopped sun dried tomatoes. Get creative!
Why Are These Homemade Croissants the Best?
- These are a labor of love. No cutting corners here! Keeping the dough nice and cold, working in very deliberate steps, will ensure you have the most buttery and flaky croissants.
- The ingredients used are common everyday ingredients; you probably already have everything you need to make this recipe.
- This is a great recipe that you can customize with fillings. You can even make sandwiches out of these delicious croissants!
- The dough or the finished croissants are great for freezing. Fresh croissants every day? I think so!
- Readers love them!
We came home from France and I decided to make homemade croissants. I’m so glad I found this recipe. I’m on my third batch! My grandkids love them, and so does the rest of my family that the croissants don’t even last two days! I make some plain and some chocolate! Excellent recipe, thank you!!!
How to Store Homemade Croissants
Make sure to keep them in an airtight container, freezer bag, or tightly wrapped in foil so that they don’t dry out. These croissants will last about 2-3 days. In the fridge, they can last up to 1 week.
How to Freeze Homemade Croissants
To freeze baked croissants, let them fully cool down to room temperature. Place them in an airtight container, a freezer bag, or wrapped tightly in both plastic wrap and foil. They will last 1-2 months frozen. Thaw them by letting them sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
To freeze unbaked croissants, shape them first and let them sit covered with plastic wrap on a baking sheet in the freezer for 1 hour. Transfer the par-frozen croissants to a freezer bag or airtight container and they will last 1-2 months. Allow them to thaw fully at room temperature before baking.
Want to Make Homemade Croissant Sandwiches? Try These Recipes:
Craving More Baked Goods? Try These:
- Hawaiian Sweet Rolls
- No Knead Bread
- Texas Roadhouse Rolls
- Soft Buttermilk Dinner Rolls
- Best Ever Dinner Crescents
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Homemade Croissants
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups milk lukewarm
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed
- 3 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour up to 4 cups if needed
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups butter unsalted, cold
- 1 egg for egg wash
Instructions
- Bloom the yeast: In the bowl of a mixer, add the warm milk, brown sugar, yeast and stir it with a fork slightly. Let it stand for about 5 minutes. If the yeast is good, the mixture will get all foamy as the yeast dissolves. It could take a bit longer but if your yeast does not dissolve, see recipe notes.
- Make the dough: Add the flour and salt to the bowl. Using the dough hook, mix on low speed for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and very soft. I used about 3 1/4 cups of flour, but if you need more because the dough is too sticky than just add more, about 1 tbsp at a time. You might want to start with 3 cups and add as needed. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and knead for a couple more minutes on your working surface. The dough needs to be soft and slightly sticky. Place the dough back in the bowl, wrap it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for an hour.
- Prepare the butter: While the dough is chilling, prepare the butter. Arrange the sticks of butter horizontally on a piece of plastic wrap. Cover the butter with another piece of plastic wrap. Pound and roll out on both sides until the butter forms a nice 8 by 5 inch rectangle. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
- Laminate the dough: Flour your work surface lightly then roll out the dough into a big rectangle that's about 16 by 10 inches. Place the butter directly in the center of the dough and fold the dough as you would a letter, bottom third of dough over butter, then top third down over the dough. If you have any excess flour, make sure you brush that off.
- Turn the dough so that the short side is nearest you and start rolling it another 16 by 10 inch rectangle. Fold in thirds like a letter again. This was the first fold. Wrap it up in plastic wrap and chill it for another hour.
- Repeat as above. With the short side near you, start rolling until you get another 16 by 10 inch rectangle. Fold it in thirds again, wrap and chill for another hour. Repeat this 3 more times so that it will make a total of 5 folds. After the last fold, refrigerate it over night or at least for 8 hours.
- Shape croissants: Cut the dough in half, freeze half if you're only going to use half of it. Roll out each piece of dough into a long rectangle, so that it's about 1/4 of an inch in thickness. I found it easier if I cut the piece into 3 pieces, so that I work with 3 squares. Using a pizza cutter, cut each square into 4 triangles.
- Using one triangle at a time, start rolling from the wide side, at the same time, stretching the end of the triangle. Continue rolling the croissant, and as you'll notice because you stretched into a long piece, you'll be able to roll the croissant a few times.
- Repeat this with remaining dough and place the croissants on an ungreased baking sheet, with about 1 to 2 inches in between them.
- Let the croissants sit for another hour, you'll notice they'll rise a bit, then brush them with egg wash. You can make the croissants ahead of time and refrigerate them for up to 18 hours before baking. If you're making them ahead, make sure to cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap.
- Bake croissants: Preheat your oven to 400 F degrees. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the croissants for 8 to 12 minutes at 400 F degrees then turn down the heat to 375 F degrees and bake them for another 8 to 12 minutes. You want to make sure they are nice and golden brown.
carol boehm says
I need to make large croissants – like 6″ long by 2 1/2″ wide for sandwiches (lunch) I need one dozen of them. Should I double the recipe? Will this recipe work for something that large?
jo says
There should be enough dough to make a dozen of those croissants, if you wanted to be safe you can do 1.5 times, just hover over the servings size and change it to 36, that should update the ingredient quantities to what you need.
Diana Trimble says
I haven’t tried it yet but just from reading it it looks pretty authentic. Except for one thing: making the croissant dough was one of my teenage jobs at a bakery in SF in the 1980s (Beau Seventh Heaven, on Haight St.). The owner was Vietnamese, and as I’m sure you know, proper French cooking, especially pastries and cookies, is quite solidly part of the Vietnamese culinary culture by now, so I think he was doing things the old way. I distinctly remember adding a butter layer each time the dough was folded over and rolled out again whereas this recipe has it happening only the one time, at the beginning. Also, it took about 5 days to make dough his way because you refrigerated it overnight after each of the 5 layers. I’m not sure if this all makes any difference or not, nor if the amount of butter is thereby increased or it’s the same amount as in your recipe, just divided into 5ths. Will have to experiment….
Teresa Songs says
You state rolling 1/2 inch at the top and 1/4 inch in the instructions before shaping into croissants, which is correct?
Jo Cooks Team says
1/4″! Thanks for catching that typo 🙂
Jason says
Last weekends set aside time for baking. Followed your Impeccable Nutella croissants recipe, were dreamy! Can’t wait until company arrives this Sunday morning to share the most deliriously delish Nutella Croissants recipe ever! . Do you have any breakfast ideas to serve along-side the croissants for my weekend guest?
Jo Cooks Team says
I would suggest something savory like these egg muffins, bacon breakfast ring, chilaquiles, or a quiche!
Jason says
All fantastic ideas! Breakfast can be such a challenge, so thanks for these easy and delish-looking recipes and I love how bright your pics are 🙂
Emily says
Hi I’m curious why it has to be an hour in the fridge between each fold? What would happen if it was less time in the fridge? I started too late and I want to go to bed lol
Jo Cooks Team says
You might not get very flaky croissants if you don’t give the butter enough time to firm up! We’re looking for layers of butter and dough.
Peggy Lingwall says
Is this recipe accurate to state 1 tablespoon of salt?? All the other similar croissant recipes say 2 teaspoons. Please verify. Thank you!
jo says
Yes that’s correct, feel free to use less if you choose.
Peggy says
Thank you so much for the quick response. One more question… Do you chill the dough one hour after each fold or just after the first one? Thank you!
jo says
You chill it after each fold. 🙂
Whit says
The best recipe!!! I followed through with it despite my questioning during the process of the butter being out of the dough and it feeling greasy. They turned out amazing!! They all got ate within the first hour out of the oven. Next time I’m doubling the batch! Thanks for the great recipe!
Whit says
I’m in the middle of making this recipe now! I think I have messed it up though because the butter is showing through and the dough feels really buttery. Still going to finish through and give it a shot! Easy process and clear instructions. I just may have missed a step or was ore occupied!
Nupur says
This recipe is pure genius.. the croissants come out much much better than the ones at bakeries. Thank you Jo!!! The best part… They taste like light clouds of buttery goodness… And literally disappear before you realise it
Ellenb says
These are fabulous. The best recipe I’ve tried so far. I find it’s important to leave the other half of the dough in the fridge while I work with the first half.
Jo Cooks Team says
Yes! The trick is keeping that butter nice and cold. We’re glad you love them 🙂
Yvonne says
Hi–can I use Instant Yeast in this recipe?
jo says
You can, the difference is you don’t have to activate it.