This week I’m making croissants. I’ve made croissants before but haven’t in at least a year and I’m out of practice. Croissants take time. No rolling out of bed early on a Sunday morning and whipping some up. Croissants normally take up to 6 hours. There’s all the rolling and folding and then the proving times. But the recipe I am testing this week is definitely the longest I’ve ever come across. It is from my newest recipe Flour by Joanne Chang. Flour is a Boston based bakery that makes all sorts of wonderful, mouth watering treats. But her croissants are legendary and so I’m trying out the recipe. It’s going to take 3 days. Yup. Three. Days. That’s ages. Even in croissant recipe terms.

Milk and Yeast Ready in the Mixer

So today I have begun with the initial dough. Basically you mix the milk and yeast together before adding in flours, salt, sugar and butter. This is mixed (by that kind, hardworking soul-the standing mixer) into a smooth, soft dough. I’ve now placed the dough onto a tray and lightly covered it with cling film as per instructions. It is resting in the fridge and will stay there for at least another 3 hours. It is supposed to rest for between 6 and 12 hours. Being that the 12^th hour will be sometime in the early hours of this morning, I’m going for the shortest resting time possible.

 Dough ready for refrigeration

 Then there are 2 pages of further instruction about rolling, folding and shaping. More on that later.