We're in Our Croissant Era, with the Baking School's Elisabeth Berthasavage

Episode Transcript

- This episode is sponsored by Brod & Taylor, makers of the new Countertop Dough Sheeter, built to elevate every bake ahead. No, the best croissants are the ones you make at home.

- No.

- Not true. From King Arthur Baking Company, this is "Things Bakers Know." I'm David Tamarkin, King Arthur's Editorial Director.

- And I'm Jessica Battilana, King Arthur's Staff Editor. And today, we are devoting the entire episode to flaky, buttery croissant. Bonjour, hi.

- How do I do it? Croissant?

- Croissant.

- Croissant.

- In Ohio, we called them "cressaints."

- Oh, crescent rolls.

- Or actually, that was more across the river in Kentucky. Cressaints.

- Cressaints?

- Yeah. But yeah, I'm here to talk about it.

- And I'm going to offer a very, very early Jess-opinion. I like just to get 'em in now at the top of the show.

- Yes, that's the spirit.

- So people don't have to wait.

- Yes, right.

- And tell you that I think the best croissants are the ones that you can't eat without destroying your outfit.

- Okay.

- You know, like where they're shatteringly crisp, lots of flaky shards of pastry, and you're like, you get 'em all over your shirt, all over your pants.

- The best croissants are the ones you make at home.

- No.

- Not true, yeah. But we are talking about baking them at home. For anybody who does not know though, let's back up. I think there are very few people who don't know what a croissant is, but for those who don't know, croissants are laminated pastry. We've talked about lamination a lot because we're a baking podcast. We're gonna talk about it again. I'm gonna give you the top line.

- Yep.

- Which is that a laminated dough is when you take a relatively lean dough, meaning a dough that doesn't have a lot of fat in it, it can have some, and you layer that with pure fat, with butter, and you roll it out. You do a series of folds, roll again, shape, fold, trim, roll, fold, roll.

- Ooh, lay it down, take a nap.

- You have a dough that's layered with butter, and it bakes up into a very crispy thing because the butter melts, it lets off steam, the steam creates flakes. That's the top line. And croissant is probably the most famous and maybe the most delicious version of the laminated pastry.

- Yeah, I think so. So you're making essentially a yeasted puff pastry.

- I'm glad you said that. That's the main difference, right, yeah, that croissant is yeasted.

- It has a little bit of yeast in it.

- Whereas puff pastry is not.

- I mean, there are sourdough versions, but I consider a sourdough croissant, you don't see them as much. The majority of the croissants you're gonna find in bakeries are yeasted.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

- I'm not gonna say better or worse. I'm just gonna say more common.

- Sure, yeah, 'cause I will run, I'll knock people down the street to run to a sourdough croissant.

- Will you?

- Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Caused lots of mayhem running towards sourdough croissants.

- Have you had a good one in New York City?

- Probably.

- Yeah, okay. I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

- Here's the thing. Croissants, it seems like it should be something simple to talk about. It's really not.

- No.

- Because things have changed. And what we think of as an ideal croissant now, and you seem to have some very strong opinions about that, so I wanna dig into that. But what you may be thinking of as the ideal croissant may not have been the ideal croissant 20 years ago.

- I think that's true.

- And we've talked about this with so many things. I feel like we've talked about this with chocolate chip cookies, sourdough bread. We've talked about that on this season.

- We've talked about that with focaccia, like this evolution over time of-

- Exactly.

- What is sort of in vogue.

- Yeah.

- Just gonna use as many French words as I can in this episode.

- You know, I'm so sick of change. Why shouldn't anything stay the same? It's a croissant.

- I mean, you're right, because when I was growing up, the first croissants I had were at chains, like Au Bon Pain, another series of French words. And they weren't as flaky. They were a little doughier.

- Breadier.

- Breadier. A little breadier, and now I think the style is these are very flaky ones with that, we've talked a lot about this internally here at King Arthur, this honeycomb structure.

- Yes.

- One of the things about croissants is it's the great trick of the ages, right? That it is loaded with butter. It's literally like more, I think, more butter by ratio than anything else. And yet, why is it so light? How is it so flaky? It's kind of miraculous. Like sometimes, you're eating a croissant and you know it's pure butter, but it just is dissolving on your tongue.

- I think that really is the difference between croissant dough and a classic puff pastry. Like you said, that yeast is really doing a lot of work. It's creating an airy structure.

- And people want to, you know, they wanna make croissants at home. We know this because the class that we teach in laminated dough at our baking school is far and away one of the most popular classes. And we have Elisabeth, the instructor, coming on the podcast later to talk about that class and making croissants at home. So people really wanna try and crack the code at home.

- Yes, they do.

- Not me. Because they are a little fiddly. Okay, that is an understatement of the century. They're fiddly to make.

- They're fiddly, yeah, yeah.

- And they're fiddly because you need to control the temperature of the butter and the dough. Then you need to control the temperature when the dough is proofing. Then you need to control the temperature when you're baking. And there's just, you know, in a home kitchen, there's so many variables that are harder to control and dial in with the precision that I think something like a croissant requires. But people wanna try.

- People wanna try.

- And we're gonna try and help them.

- Okay, so things change, but some things don't change. What are the non-negotiables for a good croissant in your opinion?

- Butter.

- Well, you know, I would laugh, but that's true.

- It's true, because I think when you get a lot of the supermarket croissant or the take-and-bake or even some from, like, I would say lesser bakeries, they're made with a combination of butter and some sort of vegetable shortening. And not only does it affect the texture, but of course the flavor. They are lacking that delicious buttery flavor throughout. So I consider that to be a non-negotiable. And that has not changed throughout time. I think the best croissants have always been made with pure butter.

- And you had a really interesting like little factoid about that.

- I did?

- About the shape of the croissants.

- Oh, yes, yes. I was reading that in France, all-butter croissants are straight, whereas croissants that are made with a mixture of butter and a different kind of fat are curved. I don't know if that's universally true, but that is sort of the standard. In France, they control a lot of things. Like they have laws about a lot of things related to baked goods, like the cost of baguettes and things like that, so I don't think it's a law, but it seems to be a custom so that at a glance, you can be like "impostor, real deal." I mean, how helpful would that be if we had that for other things?

- I love that. I think that's so cool. Good croissant also has a strong bake. And I don't necessarily think this is universally accepted. I think some people like a sort of paler bake on the croissant.

- I mean, some people like a paler bake on everything.

- Yes, right.

- And those people are wrong.

- You said it. But I do think that a pale croissant is probably a flabby croissant and you're not getting the maximum flake and, I wanna say crunch. You never want a super crunchy croissant, but there's a light crunch crispiness.

- Yeah, there's a little caramelization that happens.

- Yeah, caramelization. So for me, that's a non-negotiable for me. A strong bake, deep golden brown.

- And now, I mean, I think there are lots of good examples of classic croissant, classic all-butter croissant out there. But, you know, people can't resist. Bakers can't resist and consumers of baked goods can't resist like wanting to mess with a classic thing, right? So I think like as frequently as you see an all-butter plain croissant, you see some crazy innovation happening now.

- Yeah, right, and I think we can maybe take this back to the Cronut.

- Oh, the Cronut, yeah.

- I don't think it started there, but that was sort of a liftoff in terms of things you could do with croissants.

- Can you tell people about the Cronut?

- It's basically, deep-fry it. Yeah, I mean, I would be surprised if people don't know, but the Cronut is a pastry that was developed by Dominique Ansel in New York City at his bakery, which I think is just called Dominique Ansel Bakery.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But I've never had it. I'm sure it's delicious. But it's deep-fried croissant dough that's then filled with pastry cream or, you know, he fills it, season it with all sorts of things.

- And the idea is it's a mashup of a croissant and a donut.

- And a donut, right. And I've never had any. Have you ever had the real Cronut?

- No, I've never had a Cronut.

- Oh, you know. I mean, I hear it's delicious.

- I mean, we have two Cronut virgins here, like given how much we love baked goods, but I just-

- I just hate lines.

- I mean, I do too. And I do think you're right that the Cronut was like the point at which, you know people were like, "Hold on, we can do more with this." And you started to see croissant baked in square pans, or croissant loaves baked in square pans or suprêmes which are baked in circular molds so they look like snails all curled up. I mean, and those are so beautiful, like very deeply brown on both sides. Sometimes, they're filled, sometimes they're dipped.

- They're dipped and they're topped with little candies or nuts. Those are sold at Lafayette in New York City. And, you know, the croissant is often used as what I would call a scarcity bake.

- Right, there's that whole thing.

- I don't know if that's the term, is that the term?

- In 2023, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about something called the Croissant Theory.

- Oh, yes, tell us about it.

- So the Croissant Theory is this, you know, it's a business strategy, right? Like popularized by bakeries. And basically, it is that scarcity. You sort of create this special thing to drive demand, to build hype, to get people in line, and to sort of like increase I think like sort of perceived value of the thing.

- Yeah, and you don't make very many of them so that there's always sort of a fervor for them.

- Yeah, it's hard to get. And you get customers to post about it on social media, so it's like you're intentionally just building the buzz.

- Yeah, and I don't think you could do that with every baked good.

- No.

- You don't do that with a loaf of bread. I mean, the croissant is something special. It really captures something for people. It always feels a little special, I think. I don't think anybody, I mean, in America is eating croissants every single day. It's always a special occasion thing for people. So it makes sense that that's often what the scarcity bake is.

- Yeah.

- Why that theory was named after croissants.

- Yeah, I would be curious to see, you know, I was in France last November, and we certainly ate a lot of pastries, but I don't know that I saw, I mean, I'm sure they exist, but didn't see as many wild flavored croissants there as I see in American bakeries. Like now, I feel like the fillings are, it's no longer just pain au chocolat, ham and cheese, plain. It's like, you know, whatever. It's yuzu chamomile. It's like malted milk chocolate fill. Like there's just like so much innovation happening both in the form and in the flavor.

- Yeah. I feel like Supermoon in Manhattan is doing a lot of work with flavors, colors. And, you know, honestly, another place I've never been, but I've heard it's actually really good, that is not just shtick, that the quality is there too. But that's the thing. Like I'm always a little skeptical when I see a croissant that's like rainbow-colored. Like this just looks like a gimmick to me. I mean, that's the thing, like croissants are often used, can go gimmicky really fast. And I'm sure, I know a lot of them are truly good. The one at Lafayette was developed by a pastry chef named Daniel Skurnick, I think. Excellent pastry chef. I mean, true pro, and I'm sure it's delicious. But if you wanna make them at home yourself-

- Yeah.

- You can do that.

- You can do it.

- You can do that, you can make a chocolate croissant at home by yourself. if you're up for a little project.

- We gotta get into it. So everyone, roll up your sleeves, wipe the sweat from your brow.

- Right, because actually, this is not something that you and I can talk about amongst ourselves 'cause we don't wanna do it.

- We don't wanna do it. I mean, I believe you can, but should you? I don't know. We're gonna drill down on that, but we are gonna get some help on the question of can you, how do you, from our baking school instructor, Elisabeth Berthasavage.

- Yes. The how and the why.

- And the why.

- Yeah, Elisabeth is a longtime instructor at our baking school, and she has a really, really good new on-demand class all about lamination, Intro to Lamination. So she covers croissants, she also covers Danish, which honestly is sort of where I wanna try first. And a few other things. And she's got a very just chill teaching style.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Really makes you feel like you can do anything.

- Yeah, I know.

- So we're gonna talk to her. And at the end of this podcast, end of this interview, you and I-

- We're gonna head to the kitchen.

- We'll feel like we can do croissants. Elisabeth, thank you so much for being here on "Things Bakers Know." I thought we would just start with probably the biggest question, which is why is it even worth it to make a croissant at home?

- Well, you know, I feel like, and I often poll the students, like, why are you here today? What brings you to King Arthur Baking Company and to this class in particular? And I feel like a lot of students will say, "Oh, croissants are so delicious." And they're also cost-driven. So, you know, the average cost of a croissant really is, from a nice bakery, is anywhere from 4 to $8. And so that really adds up. And if you want this delicious pastry a couple times a week, there you go. Now you can't afford your coffee. So it just-

- Or your mortgage.

- Yeah, exactly. So I mean, I feel like that's usually what it comes down to.

- It's a great point. I wonder if you see this in your students. When I do something like lamination at home, it's truly because it's fun and it's a project, and it's such a challenge. It is as much for me about the process as it is about the end result. Do you find that with your students?

- Yes, definitely. I think , it's funny because most of the students that walk through that door, and I can say this for a lot of topics, especially with laminations, two-thirds of them have never even tried and have no idea what they're walking into. But then you have that one-third who have tried it, and they really have gained a respect for the process. And so they're there to really understand what they're doing wrong. And then the other students are there because, "Hey, this sounds fun. I love croissants. I'd like to make them at home." And I mean, it can go both ways. So it's definitely worth it to try it at home, for sure.

- What are the main differences between making a croissant at home and making a croissant in a professional setting?

- So, you know, working in a professional setting, there definitely are a lot of crutches that are used. But I would say the primary one that makes it, I would say, easier in a commercial setting is gonna be the proof box, 'cause you have complete, almost complete control over what's happening, the timing. So you've got the temperature, you've got humidity, and I mean, you can even get it going the night before, all shaped on the speed rack in the proof box, have it on cold, and then have it timed so that it pops onto proof when you're still at home, that kind of thing, right? So that's probably one of the challenges with at home, like for the homemaker, is the proof.

- There are ways to emulate a proof box at home. Which are your favorite ways?

- So my favorite way, and I talk about this in the On-Demand class too, is using your home oven, because obviously, it's not turned on to 400 degrees at this point, but use your home oven, and that's where you can place your sheet pan with your croissants, because the home oven is sort of a little box. It is safe from many drafts. And if I have my oven light on, and I only know this because I have an instant-read thermometer I can put in the oven, I know I can get that little box up to 72 degrees. So that's a lot warmer than my kitchen, 'cause in the wintertime, my kitchen is like 60, 61 degrees. It's very cold.

- Yeah.

- So use your oven. Like it's a tool. And then I also use, I get some hot water in a mug and I place that in my oven to sort of give it a little bit of humidity, because that's actually going to help with the fermentation. Yeast will be much happier. So, you know, every 30 minutes, and I set a timer for this too. I'm a little obsessive about it, but I set a timer for the mug of hot water, and I'll swap that out every 30 minutes. And when I know that I'm getting close, and I only know that from experience, I'll pull out that sheet pan, put it on my counter, get my oven preheated.

- Nice.

- Yep.

- So oven light on.

- Yep.

- A cup of steaming hot water that's replaced on a regular basis. You have a great proof box. You mentioned that proofing croissants is different from proofing bread. What do you mean by that?

- Well, you know, like oftentimes in recipes with bread, it'll talk about, you know, especially with loaf pan breads, it'll crest an inch above the edge of the pan at least, you know, take your finger, poke it, you know, just make it sure it feels pillowy and soft. And that is true with croissants. They should feel pillowy, marshmallowy. Even when you give that sheet pan a little shake, you know, a time or two, it will just wobble back and forth. So there's a lot of that that you're looking for. But I feel like students kind of get locked into this, "Oh, it has to double in size and it's gonna expand this way and like this way." And it's really not the case with croissants. So I just feel like it's such a specific shape too, and you have to look for slightly different identifiers to say, "Hey, these are ready." So often, I also mention, try to peel back the layers. Like almost with your finger, you can kinda see the layers that you've created by peeling them back. That's also really cool to see. You can see the separation.

- And if you can see the layers clearly, that's a sign that it's well-proofed?

- Yes, that is one of the signs for sure. And also, that marshmallowy, pillowy feel to the croissant. Yes, mm-hmm.

- I think there are some bakes, well, in general, I think that home bakers, a lot of them don't proof enough in general. I think we are a world of chronically underproofed proofing bakers.

- Yeah.

- But I do feel like there are some bakes where you wanna push the proof even farther or even further than others. For example, I think with challah, I try to push myself to push that final proof as far as possible because I know that's gonna give me the best shape and the best structure of my challah. And it can be hard sometimes, 'cause I don't like to wait. I get impatient. Are croissants in that camp for you? Do you feel like they benefit from really just pushing that proof and trying to get it as jiggly and marshmallowy as possible? Or do we really have to pay extra close attention to not overproofing, because we'll, you know, experience some collapsing in the oven?

- Yeah, yeah. Well, there certainly is a fine line. But yes, I do overall, I do overall really agree that it can benefit from a proof that you're really pushing to its max. But I think where people sort of stumble, especially with croissants, where you have this layering of butter in between, a longer proof, or shall I say like a longer or overproofing process, can actually get that butter too soft, especially when you're not in an environment or these are not proofing in an environment that's terribly controlled with temperature. And then if you get the butter too soft by giving it that longer proof, what can happen in the oven then is that butter has a tendency to leak. And then you're gonna see pools of butter on your sheet pan, and you're gonna wonder why. And then the sort of the texture of the overall product is going to be somewhat denser, somewhat chewier, a very lackluster oven spring. It's just gonna not be great. And so you have to be careful. And I think, you know, for students who are new to this, I would just look for those identifiers that I described and keep it at that, especially when you don't have complete control over where these things are proofing, 'cause overproofing is not great. But also, underproofing is equally not great.

- Yeah, okay. So it is not good advice to say just push it, just push it, push it, push it. We gotta pay attention.

- Yeah. I think with experience, yes. Within time, yeah.

- Yeah, okay. This has all been wonderful, Elisabeth, but to close out, just wanna make sure that we're giving everybody your top tips. What is the number one piece of encouragement you give to students when they're making croissants at home?

- Trust the process, 'cause it is a process. And don't be afraid to make mistakes, 'cause you're gonna learn from those mistakes. I've learned from them. We've all learned from them. So give yourself a pat on the back just for trying.

- I love that. Like so much baking advice, it's just life advice too. So I really appreciate that.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Well, thank you so much, Elisabeth, for coming on the show and demystifying croissants for us. Again, folks can check you out live in person at the Vermont Baking School and also in our On-Demand classes, which are available at kingarthurbaking.com.

- Yeah, you're welcome, thanks for having me.

- [David] This episode is brought to you by Brod & Taylor. Achieving even and consistent layers has always been one of the trickier parts of laminated dough. But the Brod & Taylor Countertop Dough Sheeter makes it nearly foolproof.

- [Jessica] The amazing thing about this dough sheeter is that they have taken a professional piece of equipment and sized it for a home kitchen. So it's the right scale, it's compact enough to fit on your countertop, but it fulfills the mission of a professional dough sheeter, giving you those beautiful layers of butter and dough. And then when you're done using it, it's easy to break down and store.

- [David] Yeah, when I retire and become a cottage bakery only doing croissants out of my little Manhattan apartment, I'm gonna use this dough sheeter. Every fold, every layer, just right. Find the Countertop Dough Sheeter at brodandtaylor.com. This episode is brought to you by Supernatural. Supernatural makes sprinkles, food colors, and flavors that are completely colored by plants, fully traceable, and totally free from anything artificial or synthetic.

- And it's just a proven fact, it is just a proven fact that sprinkles make everything more fun. So you can add them to your pancake batter, you could sprinkle them on your ice cream, and of course, you can use them to top a frosted cake. You can find Supernatural sprinkles, food colors, flavors, and more at kingarthurbaking.com. And the full line is available at supernaturalkitchen.com. This episode is brought to you by our On-Demand Baking School classes. Did you know that we have On-Demand classes that you can take anywhere, anytime, as many times as you like, which is very handy if, like me, you don't always get things the first time?

- I have been that person, like shaping the bagels.

- Rewind, rewatch. And if this episode has inspired you to make croissants at home, I mean, God bless you, good luck. But we have two classes that can help. One taught by our baker Wilhelm Wanders, "All About Croissants," and a second class, that's our "Intro to Lamination" class taught by today's guest, Elisabeth Berthasavage. She'll teach you to make croissants, but also other laminated pastries like Danishes. You can find all of our On-Demand classes at kingarthurbaking.com/baking-school. It's time for our next segment, "Ask the Bakers." For Ask the Bakers, we wanna hear from you. If you have a baking question for us, head to kingarthurbaking.com/podcast to record a voice message, and we may end up using your question on the show. That's kingarthurbaking.com/podcast.

- And of course, if you have a question that simply cannot wait, you can always reach out to the Baker's Hotline via phone, email, or chat. Just call us at 371-2253. That's 2253, as in BAKE, or go to kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline. That's bakers-hotline.

- Let's hear our first question. I hope we can answer this question.

- [Viewer] Hi, so let's talk flour. I understand about protein content for gluten formation, but I don't really understand about ash. And when you look at the French flours, they talk about T45, T55, and their ash content. And the reason I ask is because I see a lot of croissant, viennoiserie recipes that talk about protein content, and then the French ones talk about ash percentage. And so I'm not quite sure how to find what the best flour is for croissant, whether I can just use bread flour, whether I should use this T45 stuff. So if you could hook me up with an answer, that'd be great. Thanks.

- This is the next-level question. This is a challenging question. So the good news for this baker is that they don't really need to think about ash content if they don't want to, because at King Arthur, with our milling partners, we've already thought about it. That's not a very satisfying answer though, I realize. So we're gonna get into it a little bit. So when we talk about ash content, each flour has its own specifications for the ash content, but it invites this bigger question of what is ash content?

- We're talking about that.

- I was hoping to get off easy. And I'm gonna give the nickel version, which is when you take, and this is in a controlled environment, you take flour, you burn the flour, what's left behind is the ash content, and that is represented as a percentage of the total amount of flour. And that's the minerals left in a flour. So the more refined the flour, the less ash content. So white flour, for example, is like 0.55% ash content, and in France, that would be called like a T55 flour. Whereas something like a whole wheat flour, because, you know, there's more to burn, there's more endosperm, that's going to be, you know, a higher percentage of ash after this burn. So maybe like 1.5%, something like that. So that's what we're talking about when we talk about ash content. In France, they usually spec T45, what they call T45 or T55 flour, so 0.45% ash or 0.55% ash content flours. Here in the States, and when we're talking about the King Arthur flours, you know, a 0.55 flour is gonna be our all-purpose flour. So the AP flour will give you great, I mean, will it give you great results? It will give you the closest to sort of a French flour that we have access to here.

- You do want some strength in your dough because it is rising. You do need gluten, you do need the proteins in the dough to capture the carbon dioxide that the yeast is putting off.

- Which is why you wouldn't use like a cake flour or like a pastry flour. You do need something that has a bit of strength in it.

- But you don't wanna go the other way.

- Exactly, you don't wanna make it, 'cause you don't want them to be tough. You want them to remain light. So that is, I think that, I mean, I hope that answers the question, but, I mean, I think ash content is something that professional bakers think about a lot. I know our milling partners think about it a lot, and we have specifications for that. But for a home baker, I don't think it's hugely important information to know, and that's why we don't include it on all the bags of our flour.

- So the bottom line for this caller is use an all-purpose flour, or if you are in France, a T55.

- T55 or T45, I think, are the standard flours for croissants there. And, you know, there is such a thing as a whole wheat croissant. That's all I'll say about that.

- That's another episode.

- Yeah. That's another episode. So I hope that's helpful, but let's hear our next question.

- [Julia] Hey, King Arthur, this is Julia in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And I was gifted a home sheeter. I love the idea of it, but it takes up so much space. Is it worth it to keep it when I already have rolling pins? Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

- I like the style of this baker calling. This baker is a serious one, you know? First of all, let's just talk about what a sheeter is.

- Yeah, yeah.

- A sheeter is a piece of machinery most commonly found in professional bakeries that are doing a lot of lamination. They look like baggage carousels, right?

- They do, yeah, exactly right, yeah.

- And what happens is you send your dough and your butter block through these sheeters, and they make it thinner and thinner. It's almost like a pasta machine.

- Yeah, so it's like a conveyor belt with rollers. So, like, you roll it one way, and then you might fold it manually on the other end and turn it, and then you roll it back through the rollers. It is an automated way to do what we would do with a rolling pin.

- Right, and it laminates very consistently and very quickly. and which is good because, you know, one of the hard things about making croissants at home, which we've talked about in this episode a lot, is controlling the butter temperature. And the quicker you can do it, the more your butter will stay the same temperature.

- Sure. So there was a home version of this piece of equipment called a sheeter that was fairly recently brought to market.

- Yeah, I think Brod & Taylor does it. And we love Brod & Taylor products. We talk about their home proofer a bunch, and they have a Bread Steel, and then a cover for it to make, you know, so that you can bake loaves in a gas oven. So yeah, big fan of their products. I think a sheeter is very cool, the idea of having a sheeter at home. I love that idea. I've never made a croissant in my life, but I love that idea. I think if you're going to do it, you should probably make croissants without a sheeter, I'm gonna say a dozen times.

- Yeah.

- Know that you really love making croissants at home before you invest in a sheeter.

- I think if you were one of the people out there that has a cottage bakery business, you know, and you wanted to expand into laminated pastries, like I might be, or if you're just a gearhead and you wanna tinker around with something, I think it would be fun. I've never used one. I can't really justify the space, I don't think, for the amount of times I make croissants at home. I'm holding up a zero. But I think they are interesting. And, I mean, I also just think what's cool about it is that it's sort of, you see this trend toward things that were once like just the purview of professional baker like equipment, now making their way into home kitchens, and that's fun. It's interesting to see. This may not be the one that I pick up, but I think it's cool to see that they're now like looking toward very ambitious home bakers when they're thinking about what tools and products to bring to market.

- So do it the hard way first, and then take the easy way out with the sheeter.

- Yeah, exactly. Let's hear our next question.

- [Caller] What's the best butter to make croissants? Should I use European or American butter?

- Well, we were talking about this, and you were unequivocal.

- Yes, I think in this situation, European butter is the go-to. I mean, that's our recommendation here.

- Yes, the European-style butters.

- And the reason why is because European butter, well, it has more butterfat in it. It has less water, more butterfat than American-style butter. American-style comes in around 80%. European-style comes in at least 82%, 83%, 84%, you know, in that range.

- Yeah.

- And what that extra butterfat does is helps the butter remain pliable when you're doing all your rolling and stacking and folding and rolling again. And, you know, I mean, you do want ideally a butter that can bend, right?

- Bend, yeah.

- And that's the ultimate state. And it's easier to get that with European butter.

- Yeah, and you don't, I mean, now there are true European-made butters available in the States, you know. Plugrá being one brand. But there's also lots of domestically made "European-style" butter that have that higher butterfat percentage. Here at the King Arthur kitchens, we use Cabot, which is a Vermont butter company, and theirs comes in at about 82% butterfat. But, you know, there's also one from Vermont Creamery. There are quite a few domestic manufacturers. So you can just look for something that says "European-style" on it, and it should boast about the butterfat percentage. So more butter, more better is right. I mean, it's our next T-shirt. It's my new bumper sticker.

- All right, let's see what else Jessica has to say. Every episode, we love to check in with Jessica to hear what wildly surprising you and full-throated opinions are in her head, a segment we lovingly call "Jess-opinions." And Jessica, you have a croissant Jess-opinion for us.

- Of course I do. Of course I do.

- I think you've given a few already.

- Yeah, I mean, as always, I can't limit it to just one, but we were talking at the top of the show about flavored, you know, how now croissants, they're shaped differently, they have different flavors.

- It's like evolution.

- Yeah, evolution, yeah. And I'm in support of evolution, to a degree.

- Do you believe in-

- I believe in evolution. But you know what is a crime against humanity is the croissant that is stuffed and then also topped with chocolate chip cookie dough. Why? Why?

- Okay, yes, so in case-

- Croissants, delicious.

- Yes.

- Chocolate chip cookie dough. Delicious.

- Yeah.

- They don't need to be combined.

- Okay, for people who may have missed this trend on social media-

- I'm glad for you.

- These were a trend where people were taking what seemed like store-bought croissants and maybe store-bought cookie dough-

- Yes.

- Splitting open the baked croissant, putting raw cookie dough in-

- Oh God, I'm getting a stomachache.

- In the croissant and then baking it.

- No, then closing the croissant and then sometimes putting more cookie dough on top.

- Okay.

- And then baking it.

- And then baking it, yes.

- So what you got was like a sort of a baked chocolate chip cookie on top of a croissant, and inside, unbaked but hot, like melted cookie dough.

- Unbaked?

- I mean, it was baked, but like soft-baked, right?

- Okay.

- And I will say, you say at home, it wasn't just at home, David.

- Oh really?

- Professionals were doing this. Professionals are doing this out in the world.

- Okay.

- I'm not gonna name names, but I've seen it.

- She's not gonna name names. But you are gonna be writing some tickets.

- Yeah, exactly, I'm gonna be writing some tickets. I just think, you know, that sometimes, it just goes too far. These trends go too far. And we all know people love chocolate chip cookies. We all know that croissants are delicious, and that's fine. They don't need to be. I will say, it's not like the twice-baked croissant does not have a precedent. It just has a much classier precedent.

- There is a precedent for this, which of course is the almond croissant, which I don't think people know, which I think that's worth talking about. I don't think people know that the classic almond croissant is a day-old croissant that's been split and-

- Soaked usually.

- Filled with some, yeah, soaked in simple syrup to revive it, and then filled with some frangipane. In the same top, like in the middle, and then some on top sometimes, and then rebaked. And that's the way it's supposed to be. But sometimes people, and I think some bakers now make fresh almond croissants, and that's not right.

- No, no, I mean, I think you want like actually the structure of a day-old. Like you want it to kind of, I think that you're kind of handling those a little more roughly.

- Yeah.

- That's fine, I like an almond croissant.

- Yeah, so the twice-baked croissant is not your issue?

- No, I don't have an issue with a twice-baked croissant.

- It's the cookie dough.

- Yeah, just leave it alone. So that's what I got for you this week.

- Yeah.

- Now what do you have for me this week? What are you baking this week?

- I don't think I'm ready to dive into croissants yet, not this week, but I'm gonna do something that's sort of vaguely in the shape, which is Shio Pan or the Salt Bread.

- Oh yeah, talk about trends.

- Yeah, this was trendy a couple months ago. We got Kat Lieu, a baker, to do a recipe for us. This is a bread that is shaped vaguely, it's like a kind of a crescent shape, so it's vaguely croissant-ish. And the dough is shaped around a nub of butter so that when it bakes, you have this kind of hole in the middle, but it's also this buttery, delicious thing. It's very crispy on the bottom. So it seems really fun. I haven't baked it yet, so I wanna try it.

- Yeah, it's like a good entry-level way to roll dough around butter and get something delicious.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- And I can tell people, "Yeah, this is a croissant, what do you mean?"

- Yeah, exactly.

- "No, I make croissants, here it is."

- Well, you know what? Maybe I've talked about this before, 'cause it really is something that we make all the time, but the Book of Pizza came out just about a month ago.

- A month ago, yeah.

- So we make the weeknight Detroit pizza all the time now. And I love it because pan pizza feeds more people, really like pretty low stakes. I don't have to like be shuttling rounds of pizza dough off and on in and out of the oven.

- Totally.

- And we have some suggestions in the book for how to top it. But I find you can be pretty freewheeling with that dough and still get a great pizza.

- Are you always doing cheese first on that dough?

- I always do cheese first, and I do cheese right up to the edge of the pan. And I did invest in one of the Lloyd Detroit pans, which are anodized aluminum, dark anodized aluminum, which makes a huge difference. Like you really get a truly crisp crust in that frico edge. And then, you know, once you get the cheese down, like everything else is gravy. You can do red sauce, which is my kid's preference, but I also do, there's a recipe in the book for, you know, you and I are at odds with this ingredient, but broccoli rabe, one of my top ingredients, and it's black olives and broccoli rabe and cheese, and that's really good. And it's just one of many things you can do with that dough. So that one is truly like, and you can make it in an afternoon. Like you can think about you want pizza at 3:00 PM, and at 6:00 PM, you can be eating that pizza, and everyone will be happy, so-

- Yeah, it's a great pizza.

- Yeah. I can't make that too many times. So that's what I'm gonna do. And then I'm gonna be back with you next week for another episode. In the interim, we always appreciate listeners tuning in to us here on "Things Bakers Know."

- Yeah, oh yes, we sure do. And remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening to your podcast. Also, if you're on Substack, give us a subscribe there. Check us out there. We're sending out newsletters that align loosely to these episodes, and we're having a good time over there, so please check us out.

- I also, I mean, we do read the reviews. I always appreciate-

- Oh, do we?

- Yeah. We read them through in our heads while we can't sleep at night. So leave us a review and also share episodes with friends that love to bake so they know about us.

- And in between writing reviews, people, don't forget: follow the recipe, especially when you're making croissants.

- Especially when you're baking croissants.

- "Things Bakers Know" is hosted and executive produced by me, David Tamarkin.

- And me, Jessica Battilana.

- Rossi Anastopoulo is our senior producer, Chad Chenail is our producer, and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala.

- Thanks again to our colleague, Elisabeth Berthasavage, for joining us on today's episode. You can learn from Elisabeth online or in person at our baking school. She's an amazing instructor. It would be a gift to yourself or to somebody you love to give them that On-Demand class or to send them here to Vermont, to the real life baking school.

- Right, yeah, if you can get it.

- If you can get in. Hottest ticket in town. And you can find more about all of these classes at kingarthurbaking.com/baking-school.

- "Things Bakers Know" is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast. This episode is brought to you by a new collaboration between King Arthur and Supernatural. Supernatural, of course, is the maker of America's brightest dye-free sprinkles. And we are putting those sprinkles in our new Confetti Cake Mix and Confetti Sugar Cookie Mix. Let me tell you something, I made the cake and I made it into an ice cream cake. It was gorgeous, it was celebratory. It was like my birthday, but it wasn't even my birthday. Find both mixes at Target, target.com, and of course, at kingarthurbaking.com.