Croissant Express

INGREDIENTS
125 Ml. lukewarm water
200 Ml. lukewarm milk
125 Ml. Vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
42 Gr. fresh yeast or 17 Gr. active dry yeast
1 Egg at room temperature
900 Gr. All purpose flour
100 Gr. Melted butter
1 Egg yolk + 1 Tablespoon milk to brush the croissants before baking

INSTRUCTIONS
You can make the dough by hand, but it takes just a few minutes to complete the dough if you have a mixer.
In a bowl of a stand mixer, stir in the water, milk, sugar and crumbled fresh yeast and mix well to dissolve the yeast.
Add about 200 Gr. of flour with the salt and start mixing. Add the flour in three or four times to make sure there are no big lumps and the dough is still wet. The final dough should be quite runny and tacky to the touch.

Let the dough rest for about 20 minutes. It seems like a short time, but the high level of yeast makes the dough rise quite fast.
In the meantime, melt the butter in a small bowl.
Transfer the dough on a working surface and roll it into a long tube.
Cut in 16 equal pieces and form a ball with each one. Cover with a tea towel to prevent your dough balls from drying.

Taking each ball and using a rolling pin, form a large disk, the size of a dessert plate. Start with the first 8 balls.
Brush a dinner plate with a little butter and add the first disk of dough. Brush a little butter and add a second layer of dough. Brush it with butter and continue, until you have a total of 8 disks.
Cover and set a side until you complete the process with the second batch of dough balls.
Take the first batch of layers and turn them on your work surface. Stretch the dough as much as you can with your hands, all the way around, forming a large disk, the size of a very large dinner plate. Using a pizza wheel cutter, cut the large disk into 4 large pieces and each piece into three, giving you a total of 12 triangles.
Make a small indentation at the base of each triangle right in the middle and roll to form a croissant.
Place on a baking tray covered with parchment paper.
Complete the process with all the dough triangles.
Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes. While the dough is resting, set your oven at 180 Celsius with a fan on.
Brush each croissant with the egg yolk and water mixture.
Bake for about 15-18 minutes, until golden brown.

TIP DU JOUR :
This recipe uses fresh yeast and quite a large amount of it, which means it rises quite rapidly and you will see your dough will become quite light and airy.
This means you have to work rapidly otherwise you will have a hard time rolling the dough into a croissant shape.
The last resting time of 15 minutes will allow the croissant to increase in size and they will take a lot of space on your baking tray. Make sure you give them enough space to grow. The croissants will also grow even more in the oven and will take even more room… so be generous with giving room between each croissant.

Before you roll them out, you can spread a variety of different fillings such as chocolate spread, Nutella, almond butter or like I did, a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, garnished with a few chocolate chips. Delicious.