A chef's capsule wardrobe for the summer heat

 A kitchen is a hot place in most circumstances. Summer is the time when that heat can break a person, so when I was faced with a requirement to dress myself for it I harked back to when I lived in the tropics and worked in no AC for hours on end.

I usually only do one or two items, like these...

self-drafted original raglan v-neck, based on a hoodie pattern, with pocket and snaps instead of the usual can-fall-off-into-the-mixture buttons.

Muna&Broad Schulthorpe pants in chambray and catstooth print -- added a drawstring and raised the pockets

(sadly, both of which I can't use for this), but this time I've gone in with a new sense of maximizing the me-madeness of it all. So far: 

pattern from above, with a collar added

Merchant&Mills Heroine jeans in 10 oz denim

5oo4 pants (a T&t for me) in black cotton knit, with a patch pocket

hacked Apostrophe Patterns for both: V-neck raglan (drafted the collar, adjusted for overlap front, vented/split hem, 3/4 sleeves, added chest pocket) and khaki stretch joggers

another version of the Apostrophe-hacked pattern, and the jeans; tried embroidery on the right this time so it doesn't get obscured when I put pens in the pocket.

All the tops are cotton-polyester broadcloth, the black one is stretch while the 3 white ones are not. Closing out the summer capsule: a few bras for under the white tops, and black versions of the Apostrophe pattern now that I know I like it.

In between writing this and posting it, I've fallen back on another tried-and-true option for "dress code" that I can move in, which is yoga or athletic pants in the regulation khaki or black. They never seem to have pockets though, so when I cut off the hems (short people know) those cut-off parts become a patch pocket.

On the other side of the seasons meantime, I have hacked a few worn-out pairs of leggings/cotton lycra lounge pants (wear and tear due to thigh rub is real!) into a second layer to warm my calves that aren't covered by my knee-length coat. 

This year, summer work sewing will probably cover some knit pants, but more of my small amount of crafting time will likely be replacing cold-weather clothes that my daughter will take from my closet to bring with her to college... 

Finally back into the spotlight -- a procrastinator's tale

 

Lately, layer cakes have been the order of the day. Admittedly there are so many recipes out there, but sometimes there arises a unique challenge that makes me nerd out and put earnest effort into reinventing the wheel. 

It may be a red velvet cake with a better crumb, it may be a white cake with lightness but body to support sprinkles, it may be a yellow cake with the texture of chocolate cake. 

This is not one of those; instead, the formula for this cake sat on the back burner for almost 15 years after I developed it. I wanted a butter cake with forward nut flavor, moist crumb, and a feathery texture -- most of what I encountered were serviceable yellow cakes with a smattering of nuts, or thin sponges that were layered with rich filling, or dense financiers that negated any icing, or short crumbly slabs that were more cookie than cake. The goal was to be able to use any nut flour or pulverized nut to make a fillable, frostable layer cake -- a tall one that could be filled into a 5 or 6 -inch high tier, with the fine nut pieces evenly suspended and not sunk to the bottom. Marching in time with this idea was using a nut butter, or turning praline paste into a cake -- more on that to come.

I used a version of this as my own wedding cake -- a cashew praline cake filled with blueberry five-spice compote and frosted with white chocolate ganache buerre. It was good but not great, a little on the rich and heavy side. I kept tinkering with the balance of ground nuts and fats with various nut products and pastes, with particular attention to mild cashews and elusively-flavored pistachios making up a larger percentage of the dry ingredients than i had seen in others.

A version rolled out at another teaching gig later, a 2-layer 10" cake with hazelnuts and almonds, filled with apricot jam, and frosted with semisweet ganache buerre praline. It was a good cake but not a long lasting gig. Along the way, my two kids were diagnosed with virulent nut allergies, so this cake template stayed shut away from my home kitchen. The next jobs i had didn't need layer cakes, or had no opportunities for tinkering, or or or.

Not speaking of the Years that Were, I thought about remaking a tier of our wedding cake for our 20-year anniversary this past September, but again, not in the house. I rediscovered some old teaching materials from that time recently and vowed to resurrect this gem. The cake trend landscape was changing too, with small diameters stacked high instead of larger 2-layer cakes. New chances, new flavors, as well as a retinkered finishing.

Yes, it is more fall-flavored than spring, but there is still time ... isn't there always?

Caramel Apple Walnut Cake

Walnut layer cake  – 3 8” layers

242 g ground walnuts

420 g all purpose flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

280 g unsalted butter, softened

420 g sugar

220 g eggs

345 g buttermilk or plain low-fat yogurt (not Greek)

Combine dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until emulsified; scrape down well. Alternately add dry ingredients in 3 parts with buttermilk or yogurt in 2 parts, scraping down between each addition. Fold through with a spatula. Divide evenly into 3 pans. Bake at 325 until cakes spring back. Cool 15 minutes, then unpan onto a rack to cool completely.

Apple filling

Peel, core and dice 5 golden delicious or honeycrisp apples. Add 90 g sugar and a pinch of salt, tossing to draw out moisture. (optional: add 1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped. Or use vanilla sugar.)

Melt 56 g butter in sauteuse or skillet. Add apple dice and coat with butter. Cook, covered over low heat, until juices release. Mix together 25 g cornstarch, 1 tsp cinnamon and 45 g sugar; stir evenly into apples. Cook until thickened. Add 1 tsp lemon juice. Allow to cool.

Caramel buttercream

488 g unsalted butter, cold

450 g granulated sugar + 25 ml corn syrup

210 g cream

12 g sea salt

Cut butter into 1” cubes and place in freezer while making caramel.

Over high heat in tall saucepan, make a dark caramel with the sugar and corn syrup.

Whisk in cream off heat (it will spatter and rise a lot in the pan, be careful.) Return to heat, stirring until smooth.

Add 60 g of the frozen butter cubes to hot caramel, stir in, transfer to mixer bowl. Cool to just warm -- approx 120F-140F. Add salt and remaining butter cubes. Emulsify with whip on low speed first to avoid splashing, then whip until aerated and creamy, scraping often. The caramel base will want to stick to the bottom of the bowl and the butter will want to clump inside the whip, but as the emulsion forms, scrape the caramel up into the cooler butter. Finish with paddle on medium speed for maximum smoothness -- it will take awhile, passing through a curdled phase before smoothing out when there is enough air.

Trim cakes level if necessary. Place one layer on a cake circle and apply a thin coat of the buttercream and a dam around the edge. Fill in with the cooled apples. Repeat, placing last layer bottom side up. Frost with buttercream on sides and top and garnish with caramelized walnut halves, dried candied apple peels and sea salt.

the leav(en)ing of the known... sourdoughnuts!

 Sourdough has a rep for being the no-nonsense, savory, earth-attuned kind of bake-craft. Doughnuts are the opposite of that -- fried, usually pretty sweet from being sugar-tossed or glazed and/or filled, with endless permutations of dress-up. There is the cronut, a hybrid of the flaky layers and oil-cooking, but even that  has the frippery of lamination.

Given that I put starter in everything, is it any wonder that Sacchi would eventually find her way into doughnut dough? I consider this my last goodbye to a workplace that has seen me through some pretty cool, and some pretty rough, times, including many a doughnut station.

Why has it taken me this long to put up a post about these doughnuts I've been making for years? I really don't know. 

 

Raised doughnuts are fried yeast dough; in theory, one can toss any kind of bread dough into boiling oil and out will come some semblance of satisfactory vehicle for glaze and filling. But good doughnuts are sweet dough, not too tough and lean like baguette dough, and not too high in fat, eggs or sugar that they disintegrate into the hot oil or sponge it up into soggy greasy sadness.

So what you need is a dough with enough structure to hold its shape as it rises, but soft enough so that the hot oil can cook the mass through in the time that it takes to brown the outside. Tender, flavorful but not too overwhelmingly bready, and with good handling so you can shape, rise and cook without panic.

(Cake doughnuts are another thing entirely. More thoughts on those another time, since of course. That other staple, fried choux/ French crullers, is again a different situation to talk about.)

Sure, you can fry brioche... but one doesn't need to go through the process of a sponge and careful gradual incorporation of butter if you're going to fry it, really. And brioche lacks the wherewithal to stand the manipulation that doughnuts must undergo. Best to leave brioche as little rolls or loaves that never see the fryer, and instead make a simpler dough which uses well-aged natural leavening to boost lightness and dexterity as well as flavor.

It's good to have all the ingredients on the cool side of room temp, as the mixing of the hook warms them up to the ideal fermenting zone.

Sourdoughnuts -- makes approximately 30, depending on size

225 g active starter

3 eggs

45 g sugar

7 g dry yeast, mixed with 15 g water

300 g bread flour

7 g sea salt

95 g butter, cubed 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the starter, eggs, sugar and dissolved yeast. Mix with a hook until the yolks are evenly dispersed.

Add the flour and salt and mix for 6 minutes on low speed. Look for the dough to be dry at first, then get sticky as the flour hydrates. 

Add the butter cubes and mix another 2 minutes, then 5 minutes on medium speed. The dough should be smooth and elastic, and stick to itself more than the bowl. If it doesn't, add a bit more flour and mix until it does.

Turn the dough into a greased square or rectangular container that can contain double its volume. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in the fridge 30 minutes; it should be puffy and cold all the way through.

Pick up the top two corners of the dough and press them to the middle; turn the container around and repeat for the other two corners. Deflate the whole mass and fold it in half, still in the container. Cover, refrigerate again and let rise another 20-30 minutes, until it has doubled.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. 

Roll about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) thick to cut with doughnut cutters -- 2.5 inch (6 cm) diameter outside, 3/4 inch (2 cm) inside. 

Alternatively, divide into 25-30 g pieces and round into seamless balls for filled doughnuts. 

As they are cut/shaped, space the doughnuts with enough room to rise on a nonstick mat- or greased paper-lined pan.

They can either rise at room temperature (depending on the dough temperature, it should take 15 -20 minutes), or refrigerated up to two days. For longer storage, freeze immediately (up to 2 weeks) then let rise and defrost at room temp.

Heat 2-3 inches (5-7.5 cm) of oil to 350F (180C) in a wide deep pot. Once the doughnuts are light to the touch, carefully place them 3 or 4 at a time in the pot, turning immediately so the whole surface of each has contact with the oil. This helps to keep the doughnuts round by stopping the surface from drying and causing uneven rising. Push them under the surface of the oil occasionally to cook the insides and prevent a white ring around the middle.

As they turn golden, drain the doughnuts on paper towels and keep them warm in a turned-off oven as you fry the rest.

While they are warm, roll the doughnuts in cinnamon sugar or granulated sugar. To fill them, poke a hole in the worse-looking side with a 1/4 inch (6 mm) plain piping tip while they are warm and the insides are not yet set. Let them cool before filling with jam or pastry cream.

For icing or glazing, let the doughnuts cool completely.

Chocolate doughnut glaze:

300 g confectioner's sugar

50 g unsweetened cocoa

40 g milk

2.5 g salt

200 g semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, melted and warm

Stir all together until smooth. Add boiling water to get a coating texture; if too thin, let cool. Dip doughnuts after filling.

pretty-colored potato rolls -- again.

We're almost at summer! So summer-colored bread buns. Also, potato hotdog buns (which, to be fair, are also great made into lobster rolls -- just split through the top rather than the side)... Partly inspired by the purple burger buns at Hapa, and my previous colored potato braid. Potato rolls are a classic for sandwiches because potato has a sort of timed-release moisture action in the baked bun, keeping it moist and soft but sturdy enough to stand up to loading with filling. These are not quite as smooth as Martin's, but they are tasty and a bit more complex in flavor because of the sourdough.  

The potatoes -- purple and Yukon gold, microwaved (most microwaves have a potato setting! If yours doesn't, one large or two smaller potatoes will take about 3 1/2 to 4 minutes on high), cooled, peeled and mashed. These are purple regular potatoes, not Okinawan sweet potatoes or Filipino ube. They're really deep purple!

Sourdough Potato Hotdog Buns (two-color version) makes 16 hotdog buns or 10 120 g burger buns
sponge: 
100 g. bread flour
90 g. water
20 g honey
8 g active dry or instant yeast
Beat together in the mixer bowl and let rise 1-4 hours, until puffed and bubbly. (if you're using instant yeast, you may want to add half now and the other half with the starter.)

Add and mix in with the hook:
320 g starter, fed 6-10 hours before
180 g bread flour
8 g salt 
20 g dry milk powder (optional)
(let rest 15-20 minutes to autolyse, if you wish. It's not essential, but it makes a smoother, more consistent dough.) Mix the dough again and divide it in half. 

175 g each mashed purple and Yukon gold potatoes (or 350 g of one kind)
30 g butter (or margarine, or coconut oil)

(Of course if you just want one color you'll skip the dividing and just mix the potatoes in with the whole batch.)

Add the potato to each half and mix it in with the butter (15 g or 1 tbsp for each part.) It might take a bit of kneading on the counter to get a uniform color, (I'm kind of disappointed the yellow is not that vibrant), round, then place in lightly buttered bowls and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes to an hour.

Smileyfaces in the risen dough!

 Fold the edges in to de-gas, then turn each out.

Divide each into pieces about 38 g each, and fold to pre-shape. (The two in the middle will be single-color, so they're 75 g each.)

Roll into 6-inch ropes and twist. 

Lay them on a nonstick mat or parchment,

cover with a lid or plastic, and let rise... they may touch, but that's okay.
 

Bake at 350 about 20 minutes, until browned and sound hollow when tapped (the crust will be firm, but it softens as it cools). Pull them off the sheet and allow to cool on a rack so the bottoms don't get soggy.

The interior crumb.

Enjoy! 

Lam-nation! Where we put butter into brioche because.

Laminating brioche? Why would you feel the need to do such a thing? Did I not just do a post about how lovely it is in and of itself?

Objectively that was a really good loaf, good for eating out of hand or sliced. But gilding the lily has its merits, especially if they look like this: 

So pretty right? Laminated brioche is just a little different from Danish, but they are very similar. I wanted to create a handheld pastry that was tall rather than flat, and maximized the baked flavors of orange and almond paste within the pretty layers.

This is based on Ciril Hitz' formula, but in a more manageable quantity and a few tweeks.

Laminated Brioche with Candied Orange and Almond - makes 24 small pastries

brioche dough:

35 g. milk

100 g. eggyolks

60 g. sugar

7.5 g active dry yeast

220 g. sourdough starter

360 g. bread flour

10 g. salt

grated zest from half an orange, optional 

75 g. butter, cubed and cool but not cold

Mix the liquids, sugar and yeast together in a mixer bowl. Add the flour and mix on low speed with the hook until the flour is moistened. Add the salt and orange zest, and mix on medium speed until the dough comes up off the sides of the bowl. (It will have a gluten window, but just barely.) Add the butter and mix on medium speed until it is smooth and elastic -- this will take a good 5-8 minutes.

Cover the bowl and let the brioche dough rise about an hour at room temperature.  

Put a bit of butter or spray on the inside of a gallon-size zip-close bag, and scrub it around to coat the inside. Cuff the opening over and stand the bag upright. Gather the sides of the risen brioche dough into the middle to de-gas, then ease it into the prepared bag. Press the air out, lay the bag on its side, then press the dough inside the bag to the corners into a flat square. Seal the bag and ferment in the fridge 4 hours to overnight. 

roll-in:

175 g. butter

Slice the butter into two or three pieces and place them on a silicone baking mat. With a rolling pin, smash and roll the cold butter to a flat square about 9 inches wide. (so much fun!)

Take the chilled brioche dough from the fridge and slit the bag down the side. Flour a surface lightly. Peel the bag open and, without folding the dough, flip the rectangle of brioche dough onto the surface. Press it with your fingertips into an even rectangle about 1/4 inch thick, 18 inches by 9 inches.

Use the mat to center the roll-in on the dough rectangle. 

 and fold the two edges to meet in the center. Seal the edges. 

 Use the rolling pin to press and roll the dough back out to a 9x18 inch rectangle, the short sides being 9 inches. Make the first 3-fold. 

Wrap the dough in plastic (or cover with the cut-open bag, tucking the ends under). Chill the dough for 30 minutes to an hour, then do another 2 3-folds back to back. Chill the completely laminated brioche dough for two hours, or up to three days, before shaping.

candied orange-almond filling:

280 g. almond paste

60 g. softened butter

pinch of salt

enough orange juice to bring it to a spreading consistency, about 30 g.

   Beat these together until they are light and smooth. Add 30-40 g. diced candied orange peel.

Roll the cold dough out to a rectangle 12x24 inches. Spread the filling on all the way to the short sides, trying to distribute the orange dice evenly top to bottom and side to side. 

fold one third down and one third up to form a 4x24 inch layered rectangle. Cut the rectangle crosswise into 1-inch strips. Place each strip in the cups of a small muffin pan (this is a flexible silicone one), giving the strip a half twist before putting the ends toward the bottom. I tried a few arrangements to show off the layers here. 

cover the filled pan with plastic wrap and let the pastries rise at room temperature about an hour, or in the fridge overnight. 

The brioche itself should feel light and airy when you press with a fingertip. Sprinkle a few almond slices on each one, attaching them to the moist almond filling. Bake the pastries at 360F about 12-15 minutes, until the filling is set and the pastry is nicely browned.

When they are just warm, gently ease them out of the pan to cool the bottoms and keep them from getting soggy. They are nice just dusted with confectioner's sugar,

 but I like to brush them with some melted orange marmalade to add some shine and tartness.

So delicious, just barely crispy/flaky and moist and tangy... and just a little different from the usual breakfast pastries.

Fluffy, tender sandwich bread, by request

UPDATED with shaping videos -- see below!👇

I like making bread (no duh!) and my daughter likes eating bread. But not my bread, usually. "No offense Mom, but your bread is usually hard." I disagree! Crusty, because it's sourdough, but not hard. Unless it's been around for a little bit because it hasn't been eaten. Because it's not squishy white bread.

So, of course, I was compelled to make the tender, creamy-crumbed, slightly sweet Japanese-style milk bread you see here -- in a loaf shape that is perfect for toast, grilled cheese, and other sandwiches. 

Incorporating sourdough gives sandwich bread a boost in flavor and keeping qualities, and using tangzhong gives it that moist, soft interior and delicate crust, that stays that way on the counter for a bit. So of course to maximize my oven usage, I made two loaves -- the oven stays on the same amount of time anyway, and I have two loaf pans of equal size. I may try 3 loaves at once next time, but that might be pushing the capacity of my mixer. 
Update: since this bread has won my family over, i got two 12-inch long loaf pans and now make approximately 1 1/4 times the original quantity (shaping in 6 logs per pan). It does fit in my 5 qt mixer, but needs a larger bowl to rise in. Surprisingly, the two loaves still only take 30 minutes to bake. New quantities are in red. 

You do want to use a mixer for tangzhong doughs -- until the gluten is developed properly, they are very sticky like brioche, almost gluey. But when the dough is properly mixed, it rises nicely.
Debt of gratitude to Christine Ho's english-language blog, which is where I first encountered the tangzhong method. This recipe is very similar to hers, but with my tweaks and quantities.

Japanese-style Milk Bread Sandwich Loaves

Tangzhong:

50 g. all-purpose or bread flour 66 g
125 g. milk 166 ml
125 g. water 166 ml

In a small saucepan, whisk the flour into the liquids until smooth. Cook over medium-low heat, whisking all the time, until the mixture thickens and the whisk starts to leave a track. It will just start to stick to the bottom and may come to a bit of a simmer, but it is done when it still drips in a trail from the whisk. Turn the tangzhong out of the saucepan to cool, right into your mixer bowl.
EDIT: You can also microwave the tangzhong, stirring every 20 seconds with a small whisk or a fork to get out the lumps.

Final dough:
100 g. milk or heavy cream 133 g
112 g. eggyolks (or two large eggs and a yolk) 150 g
300 g. sourdough starter, fed 6-15 hours before  400 g
110 g. sugar 146 g
10 g. instant or active dry yeast (if your starter is very active, 7 g. should be enough) 12 g

550 g. bread flour (or part whole wheat flour and part bread flour) 715 g
37 g. dry milk powder 50 g
10 g. (2 tsp) salt 13 g

60 g. butter, cool and cubed 80 g

Add the milk or cream, eggs or eggyolks, sugar, starter, and yeast to the room-temperature tangzhong. Mix with the paddle until it is smooth and the yeast is dispersed. Add the flour, milk powder and salt, switch to the hook, and mix on low speed for a few minutes until the flour is evenly moistened. 

(I now let this sit to autolyse for about 10-15 minutes, especially for the larger batch). Turn the speed up to medium and let the dough develop -- it will look very messy for a bit, then come together into a few sticky clumps. Scrape down the sides if needed. Add the butter, and mix again on medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic -- it will take a total of 7-10 minutes. Check for a gluten window.
Clean off the hook, pull the bowl off the mixer, and go through with a bench scraper or spatula to make sure everything is evenly mixed -- there may be some butter bits or egg hanging about in the divot of the bowl, and you want to get those in cleanly.  
Coat the top of the dough with cooking spray or butter, just enough so it doesn't form a skin. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let the dough rise until doubled... it should take about an hour, depending on how healthy your starter is and if the room is warm. 

Have two 9x5 loaf pans ready... mine are a dark nonstick, so they don't need much prep, but if they are not nonstick, a quick spray or parchment liner will help get the bread out prettily. 

When the dough has doubled, gently fold the edges into the middle to de-gas.

Shaping:

Turn it out onto the counter and divide in half, then each half into 4 pieces for the traditional Hokkaido-loaf shape. Take one piece, flatten it into an oval, and bring the two short ends to meet in the middle. Roll this up from an open end into a snug 4-inch long cylinder and place it crosswise in a loaf pan, seam side down. Repeat to have four cylinders for each loaf. It doesn't matter if they touch or not, but try to have the tops be relatively even.

Update: Alternate shaping -- twist: Divide the dough into only two pieces and shape each into a cylinder about twice as long as the pan. Twist together, tuck in the ends, and place in the pan.

Cover with plastic wrap or bags, and let the breads rise until they come to the top edge of the loaf pan. This will take about half the time of your first rise. *

Bake the breads at 350 F -- they should take about 25-30 minutes. The tops will sound hollow when you tap, and they will feel crusty with a nice golden color. Remove them from the oven and let cool a bit, then turn the loaves out of the pans onto a rack. If the bottoms lack color, you can put them back in the oven (out of the pans) to brown the rest of the way around for a few minutes, then remove and let cool completely.
As they cool and the moisture distributes evenly, the outside will soften and stay that way, so don't be sad that the crust is very firm when they come out of the oven. 

Do let the loaves cool completely before slicing -- the inside is very tender while hot and it will squash if you cut too soon. 

The sandwich loaves will live happily on your countertop, each in a gallon-size zip-close bag or something like it, for a good week. Or less, if someone keeps creeping up and slicing pieces off! 👀😋

* I didn't find it necessary to brush the loaves with anything before baking, but a little milk or cream will give them a darker, semi-glossy finish. Beaten egg gives them a much darker, shiny crust, but i find that that peels off after a few hours. You can brush them with melted butter as they come out of the oven, but again, the crust softens nicely even without.

Presenting Chocolate Croissant (and Pains au Chocolat) ! (part 2)

Welcome back! For the second half of the tutorial, it's rolling out, cutting, shaping into the actual croissant and filled-rectangle shapes, baking and finishing. You'll need a ruler or tape measure to get the best-looking shapes, and a sharp knife with a blade at least 8 inches long.

The batch size we made before yields 24 full-sized pastries -- croissants approximately 6 inches wide, or pains about 5 inches long. Croissants are shaped from a triangle, rolled up from the wide end to the tip, then curved to form the familiar shape -- 4 inches at the base and 8 inches high.


Or you can make them half-size, about 4 inches wide, from a triangle 3 inches by 6 inches. This means 48 pastries, 24 from each half of the dough.

 The finished dough softens relatively fast when it's rolled thin, and sticking happens. I find it easiest to work with half of the batch at a time because of this, plus it is easier to maneuver a shorter length when rolling. For this reason, the measurements here are for half the batch.

To start, flour the counter well and take the finished and rested dough and roll from the open ends (crosswise to the last folds) to make the square into a rectangle about 18 inches long by 9 inches tall -- it will be about 1/2 inch thick. With a sharp knife, cut the dough in half to make 2 9 inch squares. Wrap and refrigerate one half, or put it in a gallon-size freezer bag and freeze it for another time. 

Your 9 inch square needs to be rolled out to about 3-4 mm thick -- a rectangle approximately 16 inches by 12 inches for full-sized croissants. Don't worry if it is a little too long or wide, but make sure that the 16-inch side is a folded edge (as versus an open end). It will be much easier to get the dough to a 16 inch length than a 12 inch width, but just keep at it, maintaining the even thickness by rolling from the center out. Try not to roll over the edges too much or they'll get too thin. Lift the dough from the counter often to make sure it's not sticking. As it gets thinner, it will start to become elastic and pull back. If it seems too soft, slide the whole thing onto a cutting board or pan and refrigerate the dough about 10-15 minutes. It might shrink -- wait to measure until it's cool.

Once you have the right sized rectangle, fold the 16-inch length in half so you have a double thickness rectangle 8 inches tall and 12 inches wide.

Now mark 4 inch segments across the bottom edge. Across the top, mark 2 inches, then 4 inches and another 4 inches -- the last bit will be 2 inches. Mark a diagonal line connecting the bottom right corner with the 2 inch mark at the top. From this mark, make another line to the first 4 inch mark at the bottom for your first triangle. Then go up to the second top point, down to the second bottom point, then up again twice more. You should have 3 triangles pointing up and two whole triangles pointing down, with a half-triangle on each side. 

Cut with a sharp knife along the marks, then unfold and cut the two middle triangles apart crosswise, as well as the four half-triangles.   Press the long (straight) sides of the two half-triangles together for the first croissant, stretching it out long for the maximum layers. Brush off the excess flour -- too much flour on the outside makes for crunchy (not crispy-tender) flakes.

Make two 1/2 inch cuts in the 4-inch base and spread it apart a bit. 

Now roll from the 4-inch base, stretching, to the tip. (Make sure the tip stays on the bottom... if it isn't weighted down, it will flip up and might burn, or your croissant might unroll.) Curve the ends into the familiar moon shape.

Repeat for the rest of the triangles, then the other half of the dough. As you shape them, put the croissants on a parchment- or nonstick mat-lined pan, spaced well apart. You can fit 6- 8 full-sized croissants on a 12x18 (half-sheet) pan -- don't crowd them or they will stick together once they rise and bake.

For half-sized croissants, the rectangle should be 12x18 inches, then folded so it is 6 inches tall. 

You can fit 12- 15 of this size on a pan.

Once all the croissants are formed, cover them with plastic wrap or another sheet pan and let them rise at room temperature until they double in size and feel very wobbly and light when you touch them -- it will take awhile, about two hours, but let the yeast do its thing.

Alternatively, freeze the shaped but not risen croissants until they are firm, then put them in a freezer bag to rise and bake as you please.

For pains au chocolat, roll the half-batch to a rectangle 12 x18 inches, and cut into 12 rectangles. Brush off the excess flour.

Put a few pieces of chocolate (we like milk chocolate) down the middle and roll up in thirds the long way, placing the end in the bottom center -- if the opening is on the side, it will tip over. Still delicious, but not as even-looking.

For half-sized pains au chocolat, start with the rectangle the same size, 12x18, and cut it into 2 x 4.5 inch rectangles.

As with the croissant, set the formed pains au chocolat on a lined pan, and cover to rise. (Or freeze, as above.)
 They will tend not to take as long as the croissant, so check them in 1 hr 20 minutes. (I didn't slash mine, but you definitely can, to get those beautiful markings you see on Instagram that show off the layers. Next time, I'll do some with slashes and update this post.)

When the shaped croissant and pains are almost fully risen, put a metal pan (like a pie or cake pan) on the floor of the oven (you will use this to create steam later, which will help the pastries rise), set the racks evenly spaced and preheat the oven to 370 degrees. 

When they are fully risen -- wobbly and light when nudged with a fingertip -- quickly toss about a cup of hot water in the pan on the bottom of the oven and place the pans with the croissants or pains on the racks. Close the door quickly to trap the steam, and bake about 12-15 minutes without peeking. Smells amazing!

At the 12-minute point, they should have risen nicely and started to brown -- it's harder to tell with the chocolate dough, but they should feel set and just firm. Rotate the pans top and bottom and front to back, and bake another 5-8 minutes. 

For half-sized pastries, check and rotate after 8-10 minutes -- they will go quickly!

I don't like to egg-wash the chocolate dough because it doesn't really make a nice color. Instead, after baking I brush them with a syrup that makes them shiny as the water evaporates. 

100 g sugar

50 g hot water

30 g corn syrup or honey (to prevent crystallization)

When they are fully baked, let the croissant and pains cool a bit before brushing the syrup on, gently so the delicate flakes don't come off. Let them cool completely on a rack so condensation doesn't make the bottoms soggy.

And there you have it! Beautiful, delectable and oh-so-satisfyingly handmade croissants et pains au chocolat, chocolate through and through. 

Thank you for sticking it out through this tutorial!! I'm really proud of these, and hope you will be too when you make your own. Let me know what you think!!!