13 hours Ago By Phoebe Cornish
Freshly baked croissants are hard to resist when their buttery aroma wafts from the bakery shelf. But while many people enjoy eating these pastry delights, they are not often made from scratch. This is partly due to their complexity, with several layers of delicate dough required to form the airy consistency, but also because many recipes are longwinded.
Chef Gordon Ramsay himself says that the French way is to make the dough 24 hours before, but for those who don't have that much time to spare, a food blogger has shared an easy shortcut. On YouTube, Liza's Delicious Recipes is a cooking content creator who claims to have found "the easiest way to make croissants." Liza's method takes around two hours, including one hour for the dough to chill, and she says the results are "light, airy, golden, flaky and buttery croissants".
Ingredients 80-90ml water 10g sugar 8g dried yeast or instant yeast 50ml warm milk (50 ml) 4g salt 250g flour 200g soft butter Take a large mixing bowl, measure your water, and then add it to the bowl. Add the sugar and yeast and mix into the water. Leave to sit for five to 10 minutes for the yeast to get to work, then return to the bowl and gently stir the thickened mixture.
Add the milk and mix well to combine before adding the salt. Stir again, then measure the flour and add it to the bowl. Use your hands to work the flour into the mixture and form a dough, kneading as you go.
It will be very sticky at this point, but persevere, and the smooth dough will come together later. First, you need to add 50g of softened butter. Spread it on top of the dough with your hand, then knead it for six minutes, again by hand.
When the dough is smooth and no longer sticky, press it down into the bowl and cover with a tea towel. Generously spritz the top of the towel with some water and leave the dough to rest at room temperature for one hour. Check the dough is twice the size before removing it from the bowl to continue making the croissants.
Sprinkle a handful of flour onto a clean work surface and place the dough on top. Roll the ball of dough into a large sausage shape, then cut it into seven equal-sized portions. Take one piece and form a ball, then pat and knead it inwards before flattening it out again into a pancake shape.
Roll the dough into a large, flat circle, turning it around as you roll to ensure it is even. Transfer the circle to a well-floured plate. Soften the remaining 150g of butter in a dish and use a pastry brush to grease the top of the dough circle.
Repeat the kneading of the remaining portions, roll them out into circles, and continue to layer them on top of the other sheets on the plate, brushing butter on top of each one. When all seven portions of dough are layered, roll the dough stack on a well-floured surface into a large rectangle. Trim the edges of the rolled-out rectangle to form a perfect square, then use a pizza cutter to draw triangles to form six triangles, starting from the corner of the rectangle inwards in a diagonal line.
You'll see the natural pattern from there. Separate the dough rectangles and cut a small slit on the base of each one, then begin rolling up the dough from the wide end up to the point. Ensure it is tightly secured before placing it onto a baking sheet.
Repeat with all the dough triangles and leave to rest at room temperature on the baking tray for a while. Brush the croissants with egg wash, then bake in a preheated oven at 190C for 20 to 25 minutes..
