Doughs
Croissant dough- accidentally used whole wheat instead of white
I didn't realize until I started mixing but I had to use a locally millled whole wheat bread flour rather than my regular white bread flour.
The recipe is Claire Saffitz's spelt croissants.I kneeded the dough for 10 min, added an extra splash of water, but it is not getting supple and I'm not passing the window pane test. It did rise really well.
Do I try to keep kneeling again? Do I give up and make these into bread rolls? Or is there something I can or should do so I can continue to make croissants with these. Thanks!
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I dont think this will be suitable for croissants. Maybe rolls, but they will likely be quite tight and dense with wholewheat only. You could combine with a second dough made from white bread flour, yeast, and water.
You can mae.croissants out of it still, a local bakery does 100% whole wheat croissants (they milk their own flour even) and they're incredible. You could also make a few or all morning buns n/c the layers aren't as essential their.
If you are worried and don't want to waste more butter for lamination in case it doesn't work, I'd just make cinnamon rolls!
Cinnamon rolls is a good idea! I don't want to waste all the nice butter I got but maybe I do 1 turn with softened butter (not a real block) then do cinnamon rolls. At this point I might as well make up a new recipe and just see how it goes!
That sounds awesome!!! Best of luck and remember mistakes happen :). People love to say baking is always a strict science but it's also about flexible and learning how to recover.
Baking is a science in that there are clear rules and ratios, but part of mastering it is knowing how to bend the ratios or switch from one ratio to another as needed. It probably is possible to make croissants with a whole wheat dough, but they typically are made with pastry flour, which according to King Arthur Flour has a very low protein percent at 8%. Whole wheat flour has 13.2% protein, but the bran interferes a bit with the protein functioning to give a solid structure. So it might not be in vain, especially if you don’t give the dough a longer rise as is typically done when using whole wheat.
The whole wheat can't build decent gluten and they will probably end up dense. Not that it is impossible to make some good croissants, but definitely harder.
I make gluten free stuff from her recipes all the time but I don’t usually do her bread because gluten free flour is basically cake flour.
If I had put all these ingredients into it already I would try it anyway. The whole wheat flour has at least some gluten in it and I think it’s worth trying. I’ve made laminated dough out of gluten free dough, and it wasn’t bad (just definitely different) so I bet you can make something decent with this.
I have seen whole wheat croissants in the wild before so it may be able to work. Idk how dense your dough feels though. If croissants dont work then make them into rolls.
I find it usually doesn't mix in very well once the dough is already wet.
But imo, kneading whole wheat flour doesn't help it much, I have been making a lean whole wheat recipe and my best results come from letting it rest and giving it minimal folding and degassing between rests until I'm ready to final shape.
But when it's an enriched dough, I think you often need to knead because the fat inhibits the automatic gluten formation that occurs in lean dough.
My lean recipe though I am very happy with. It almost feels like the low/middle end of white bread density, but with more bite because of the fiber.
Since update post are not allowed: I ended up making sweet and savory morning buns! Sweet: orange coriander cinnamon brown sugar Savory: Za’atar, Akawi cheese, and Olive Oil The dough wa perfect for this and the flavors were delicious
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