Croissants from scratch: it's complicated

The saying it true. People who work at McDonalds  n.e.v.e.r   e.a.t   t.h.e.r.e   a.g.a.i.n. 

I was worried that the same rule would apply to a croissant-making course. Once I found out just how much butter was actually in them would I ever want to eat one again?

The answer is yes.

Ever since seeing It’s Complicated I have wanted to channel Steve Martin and Meryl Streep, stumbling into her café in the middle of the night to make fresh chocolate croissants. Buoyant French music played while they rolled, cut, stuffed and glazed each croissant before keenly peering into the oven, their eyes aglow like mischievous school children watching them puff and rise. Warm, buttery deliciousness.

I might not have my own café (yet) but I am in Paris, the true home of the croissant*, so fling some flour on my face and call me Julia.

We decided to book into La Cuisine Paris (lacuisineparis.com), a French cooking school in the heart of Paris that offers English speaking cooking classes. Our pastry chef for the day was Justin, originally from Texas, who traded holding knives in a busy commercial kitchen to holding novices’ hands through basic French cooking techniques.

From start to finish the process of making a croissant is a lengthy one. It usually takes around six to seven hours as the dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet ready for cutting. This entire process is called lamination.

We'd only booked in for a three-hour course so were interested to know how’d we manage to feast on the flakey fruits of our labour at the end? This was, after all, the part we were most excited about.

Our concerns were soon put to rest. The class was divided into two parts. We would make our dough from scratch and while that was resting we would roll, cut and shape croissants, croissants aux amandes (almond croissants) and pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) from dough that had already been made.

There were nine people in the class, five of who were Australian and, like us, living out their French fantasies. With hair tied back and aprons wrapped around our waist we were ready to approach the bench.

First step was to make the dough. Being a child of the ‘ready made’ generation I have never really learnt to make anything from scratch. Brownies to me came from a Betty Crocker cake mix, bread was always pre-sliced and to make light, airy pancakes all I needed to do was add water and shake. I was looking forward to mastering, or at least learning, how to make dough and pastry.

Ingredients

Croissant dough

·      250g flour

·      1 tsp salt

·      35g sugar

·      10g fresh yeast

·      125g warm water

·      25g melted butter

Butter block

·      125g unsalted butter, room temperature

Step 1

Melt the butter and set aside. Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and dissolve the yeast in warm water, then add the butter. Form a well with the dry ingredients and pour the liquids and sugar into the centre. Mix slowly until combined. 

Step 2

Knead the dough until it is firm and springy, then let it rest at room temperature for 20 minutes.

It's best to refrigerate the dough for at least six hours before beginning the lamination (butter-layering) stage, however for us time was of the essence. 

Step 3

Butter, butter and more butter. Using a rolling pin and greaseproof paper, pound the butter into a square and refrigerate until cold and firm.

Butter before it was pounded

Step 4

Roll the pastry dough into a diamond shape and place the square of butter in the middle. Fold the corners of the pastry around the butter making an envelope and firmly press the dough together. Now for the tricky part: roll the dough (which is now filled with butter) into a rectangle about eight by 16 inches. Do this twice. It gets easier. 

 Be kind to the dough. The butter could squeeze out at any moment.

Step 5

Croissant dough complete. It's ready to be refrigerated.

It was now time to roll out and shape the dough into little flakey morsels.

Step 6

Each armed with a rolling pin we sprinkled the workbench with flour and gently started to roll our dough into a square. We were taught to roll from the middle, not the sides. A uniform thickness ix important.

Armed and ready

Step 7

From the rolled dough we sliced out isosceles triangles for the croissants and rectangles for pain au chocolate. 

Croissant in the making

Reading for baking

Chocolate croissants ready to be rolled. Place a stick of chocolate at each end
and roll until they meet in the middle

Chocolate croissants left to rise 

After shaping the croissants they can be either glazed and baked or frozen for baking later.

The only thing left to do was enjoy our well earned feast! 

I know for sure that my future is filled with cakes, pastries, fresh bread and lots of tarts.

Quick tip: Don't order butter with your croissant. It's not needed.

* The Kipferl – ancestor of the croissant – has been documented in Austria going back at least as far as the 13th century, in various shapes. The "birth" of the croissant itself – that is, its adaptation from the plainer form of Kipferl - can be dated to at 1839, when an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese Bakery ("Boulangerie Viennoise") at 92, rue de Richelieu in Paris.

Dinner begins at eight

Jim Haynes Supper Club - Sunday December 9, 2012

“Maddy this is David. David is a travel photographer who has lived here for the past 22 years. He comes to dinner every single Sunday. David, Maddy is a writer from Sydney who has come to Paris to be in Paris.”

Every week for the past 30 years Jim Haynes has hosted a Sunday dinner at his home in Paris. Friends and total strangers call or email in advance to book and venture out to the 14^th arrondissement to break bread together, to meet, to talk, connect and often become friends.

I had read about Jim’s Sunday dinners online, stumbling across his website while on a Google road trip. I was instantly curious and wanted to know more about these institutional dinners run by an American-born 78 year-old man who welcomes total strangers as old friends. Seeing as though I was already in a foreign country what better way to immerse myself in the unknown than to attend a dinner party with a group of people I’d never met?

I sent Jim an email requesting a spot for my friend and I and within the hour he replied with a set of cryptic instructions. Done. Easy. The adventure had already begun-

Catch the metro to Alesia; take exit 6 and walk straight ahead ten steps, turn left into the rue d'Alesia and continue to traffic light; turn right and walk 39 steps to big green gate; press 45 A 96 and push open gate and walk to doorway A in the garden.

Dinner begins at 8 and ends at 11.

Dress comfortable. No flowers, bring a big appetite.

Staying true to our directions even down to the number of steps, we arrived complete with our appetite and no expectations. Upon opening the door the muffled hum of voices that had been contained by the windowpanes amplified into a full-blown orchestra harmonised with accents from all over the world. 

Dinner was held in Jim’s atelier, formerly a sculpture studio. The room itself was nothing out of the ordinary, adorned with simple furniture, a messy bookshelf and a few black and white photos, yet it was splitting at the seams with people of all ages and nationalities milling around the open plan kitchen, leaning against walls or sandwiched on the old couch. Since there was no organised seating it was perfect conditions for mingling. It was everything I wanted it to be – warm, buzzing, casual and inclusive.

Jim was instantly recognisable lounging back on a stool in his blue and white-checkered apron with his glasses resting on his nose and arms crossed as he eyed each newcomer slipping through the doors. I would put good money on the fact he is in the exact reclining position every Sunday.

A self-confessed people lover, Jim is a big believer in building relationships. “Each week I make a point to remember everyone's name on the guest list and where they're from and what they do, so I can introduce them to each other, effortlessly.”

Within minutes I’d shaken hands with five new faces, had given Jim a French kiss (on both cheeks) and was onto the first course – a crisp salad of witlof, radicchio, walnuts and beetroot.

Each week a different friend is in charge of preparing the feast and this week it was Jim’s friend from London. He was armed with an oversized ladle and looked every bit the chef at a school canteen as he swiftly dished up countless servings of chicken and goats cheese bake with basmati rice and tomato ratatouille. Guests crept up to the kitchen bench to be served and helped them selves to slices of fresh bread to mop up the remnants of their meal.

Jim provides not only the food, but also boxed wine, bottled beer and soft drinks. We drank wine out of plastic cups while balancing our plates of home cooked goodness on our laps, tactfully taking mouthfuls between conversations.

We met Kay who’s a lawyer in Brussels but originally from California; Michael from the US who has moved to Paris to compose music and can’t get his head around the fact that I didn’t play basketball at school (yes, I’m tall); David the travel photographer originally from Darlinghurst whose favourite destination is India; Veronica from Virginia who looks just like Audrey Tautou; and, last but not least, Mona, an elegant French woman cloaked in a black velvet dress who is a professional clown – seriously.

At the end of the evening those in the know whipped out their Tupperware containers and dished up a healthy portion of the leftovers to roll them into the next day. Not even one crusty cluster of apple crumble was left behind.

The evening came to a grand total of a donation (€30 suggested) with all the proceeds going to various artistic and social projects. Jim is currently supporting a small Broadway production entitled "Broadway Enchante" which plays nightly in French and English at the Theatre La Bruyere. The two principals, Isabelle Georges and Frederik Steenbrink, are dear friends of his and we couldn’t have been happier to support the cause.

We will be back. We will bring Tupperware.

To put your name on the list and be part of this fantastic tradition visit www.jim-haynes.com.

Menu - Sunday December 9, 2012

Entrée: Salad of witlof, radicchio, walnuts and beetroot

Main: Chicken and goats cheese bake with basmati rice and tomato ratatouille

Dessert: Apple crumble

Mixing café culture with haute couture

My usual coffee order back home in Australia is a strong soy piccolo. If I’m feeling particularly confident then I’ll ask for honey on the side (inspiration for blog title) and if I’m feeling like it isn’t quite the time or place to be difficult I’ll adapt this to a strong soy latte.

Coffee in Sydney means serious business. Coffee in Paris is just serious.  It is best ordered strong and black (a petit noir) and thrown back in one hit. If you order a cappuccino then it is safe to assume the froth will hover awkwardly on top like an ill-fitting midriff.

A number of Australians have recognised the need for good coffee in this stylish town and have set up shop in the alleyways of Paris.

We’ve made it our mission to venture to a few -

Coutume Cafe

Address: 47 Rue de Babylone,  75007 Paris

Sipped: Cappuccino and macchiato

Ate: mushroom crepe; chicken and eggplant sandwich  

Soy milk on the menu. Recyclable takeaway cups for sale at the counter. Science beakers used as water jugs. Am I in Melbourne? Either way, Coutume Cafe is our new local.

Au Passage

Address: 1b Passage Saint-Sébastien, 75011 Paris

Sipped: Freshly brewed espresso

We called into Au Passage en route to another coffee stop with the intent of making a reservation for dinner (with our limited language skills it is safer to make reservations in person with the use hand gestures).

The restaurant resides down a narrow alley behind a vintage shop front and originally opened in 1910 as a bar. The interior is reminiscent of an authentic Italian pizzeria come old school diner with green and red chairs, wooden tabletops and mismatched artwork decorating the walls.

Two Aussie guys, one from the Sunshine Coast and the other from Sydney, were in the bar going through the motions of preparing for the evening ahead- cleaning glasses, making bread and playing around with the new coffee machine (of which we reaped the benefits). A jar of vegemite stood proudly on the mantel between bottles of French wine and strong spirits.

One of the guys buzzing around was James Henry, the initial owner and head chef of Au Passage who has now left the restaurant to open another wine bar come restaurant in early January.

Before I knew it we were perched at the bar sipping on a strong espresso and talking about Sydney wine bars while James marked a number of local haunts on my worn and torn map. One of those places was 10 Bells, an espresso house with delicious buttery, bite-sized fruit scones.

10 Belles

Address: 10 Rue de la Grange aux Belles 75010 Paris

Sipped on: Cappuccino and espresso

Ate: Fruit scones with fresh jam.

This hole in the wall is proof that good things come in small packages. While spreading a thick layer of butter on our scones we were rubbing shoulders with students and travellers scribbling notes in their journals. So, naturally, we both took out our journals.