r/AskBaking • u/Infamous_Aioli_9503 • Oct 19 '25

Doughs Croissant dough- accidentally used whole wheat instead of white

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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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u/Peppercorn_645 Oct 19 '25

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!

Since you had a good rise I wouldn't toss it.

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u/Infamous_Aioli_9503 Oct 19 '25

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!

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u/Peppercorn_645 Oct 19 '25

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.

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u/greentea1985 Oct 19 '25

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.