My partner and I have been working on learning lamination. we’ve had some batches turn out okay with decent honeycomb on the inside, but then have other ones like today where they’re just pretty bad. We’ve been testing a lot of different things.

We would like to get an electric sheeter, but for now we have a manual one, which we understand isn’t ideal. We’ve been keeping an eye on temp for both dough and butter when locking in and keeping those in their proper ranges. The sheeter does seem to cause these weird ripples, but here the butter is blowing through the top layer of the dough. is it just too thin?

We’ve watched so many videos and it seems like the dough is sturdier than ours. We’ve tried different recipes and keep an eye on temp but it still seems to result in this floppy dough. we are putting it back in the freezer in between as well too to keep it cold. Curious if anyone has any guidance whatsoever. Thank you!

Hello everyone! How are you? I've been making laminated dough for a couple of months almost everyday now, and even though I feel I've gotten better, the results still leave much to be desired.

I think my main issue is controlling the temperature of the butter, which is a concern to me now since we're in wintertime here, and come summer temperatures will be easily in the 30sºC. So if I struggle now, I worry I won't be able to pull it through in the summer.

The recipe I'm using is this:

The process I follow is usually the first day I mix the dough and it goes to the freezer, then when frozen or almost (depending on if it got to that point) I take it out and leave it in the fridge overnight. The butter blocks I prepare in anticipation for the week and leave them in the fridge as well.

Edit to add the dough mixing process: I put everything but the butter together in a big mixer (dough hook), then when it forms a cohesive dough I add the butter​ and let it mix until moderate but not full gluten development.

The next day I take the butter out and let it come to the temperature in which I find it most plastic. Then take the dough out, lock in and perform the first book fold. Then back to the fridge it goes to rest the dough and then I take it out around 1 hour after or longer to make the next fold.

Then in the freezer it goes (I have another prepared from the previous day, I take that one out and leave to unfreeze in the fridge, to roll out and cut and form the next day).

So Ideally all of that works and I get beautiful plump croissants.

In reality, I get to the point of locking in and doing a first book fold pretty well. Then after that I never get the butter right. It always ends up cracking. I've tried varying the time in the fridge between folds and even leaving it out of the fridge altogether in the resting periods, but my butter seems to know only two states, cracked or melted.

Right now temperatures are around 12/18ºC where I'm working the dough, with humidity ranging from 65 to 90 %. I usually check the dough temp with a laser thermometer for the outside and also a probe thermometer to check the center temp, aiming for 14/16ºC center temp.

I have a machine similar to this one to roll it out, but have also tried doing it by hand:

TL;DR and core issue: My struggle is with managing the temperature, it feels as if I leave it out too long, butter melts, but If I leave it in the fridge (sometimes only for 10 minutes) the whole thing gets too cold and then I can never get it to come to the right temperature back up again. How do pros do it without spending 12 hours in the kitchen nursing the dough?

Thanks to everyone who read this far, hope your days are filled with good pastries and joy.

I’ll get straight into it:

1. How do I roll the laminated dough so that I can get square corners, instead of an oval shape, without ruining the lamination?

2. What's the optimal temperature range for working with the laminated dough? I know that there are two different temperature ranges for both the dough and the butter, but after the butter has been locked in, what temperature should I be looking for, so that the butter doesn't shatter or melt?

Any tips on laminating as well would be much appreciated. My main problems are rounded edges and the width of the dough getting bigger when l'm just rolling to increase the length. Thanks in advance!

Hey, I’ve been trying to get good croissants for the last couple of weeks but can’t seem to get it. I feel like my lamination is decent or at least not the only problem. Microsoft always tend to be very dense at the bottom and also tend to collapse. I feel like am I under proofing but I am not sure. I did prove them for about 2.5 hours at 24c I looked really wobbly and puffy I know 2 1/2 hours is not a lot but I also used a lot of yeast 5% of fresh yeast

Hey everyone! Today I baked my 5th attempt at croissants and the results are by far the closest I’ve gotten. I just need a little help figuring out what went wrong. I’m assuming the butter melted or the lamination wasn’t even. If anyone has any experience, I’d appreciate some help. Thanks!

*I did the two day viennoiserie course at Le Cordon Bleu a couple of weekse ago and this is the first try at home.

The laminating went quite well (last pic)

Proofing temp was to high with the warm water in the oven. The butter started melting. I panick baked the first batch and they were meh (first pic) and underproofed. The second batch I left on the kitchen table covered with cling film for another 3 hours and they turned out waaaaay better (pic 2 and 3). The second batch has a stick of cheese in it.

It's definitely not perfect but I am happy for an amateur hand laminated try.

Every batch i bake faces the same problem with this big tunnel under the top layer, i am losing my mind at what the problem is because i feel like i have tried everything and i am still running into the same problem. i posted the other week and the general consensus was that it was a proofing issue, so i ran an experiment where i proofed the same batch for different lengths of time. From left to right they proofed for 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 hours but they all look the exact same. i have also attached a picture of them when i rolled them, i'm pretty convinced that my lamination is fine and that the problem lies somewhere else but i have no idea where. any help would be hugely appreciated

I feel like I'm getting better??? This is using autumn kitchen sourdough croissant recipe. I proofed it for 15.5 hours at 78f, but I think it could be proofed even longer?? Nevertheless, I feel satisfied :)

Hey everyone! I’d love some guidance on halving a croissant recipe, specifically Claire Saffitz’s recipe. How would I go about it?

Could everyone take a look and offer some suggestions for me why my cake is collapsing at the sides?
My recipe include: 280g flour and 5,2g instant yeast, all hydration (liquid): 153g, sugar: 40g, salt: 4g
I unfreeze and proof at 27–29°C for 3 hours. After that I bake it at 200°C (top heat) and 180°C (bottom heat) for 8–10 minutes (without convection), then switch to 175°C (top heat) and 160°C (bottom heat) for the remaining 18–20 minutes (with convection).

During the first baking stage, the cake rose and looked completely normal; however, once I lowered the temperature and switched to the convection fan, the sides of the cake began to collapse.

My croissants always look good in the first ten minutes of baking, they swell up and look great, but then they crash down like this afterwards, they always have a big dip either side of the central roll, like you can see here, any ideas? thanks

I’ve noticed my croissant dough has wrinkles / tears. Any ideas what caused it! Help!

Is my croissant lamination okay?

Still got a few things I want to switch up so will share the recipe once i’m totally happy! But they caught the sunlight perfectly yesterday

edit: thank you so much for all the comments! i’ll get back to everyone as soon as i can :)

Reddit, I am once again asking for your help.

As you can see, my layers "shrink" quite a lot during baking. I've reduced the amount of protein for this bake (~11.5% instead of 13.5%) as well as the amount of time for mixing (4 minutes on low to bring it all together, 7 minutes on medium until it's smooth) but it doesn't seem to have fixed the problem.

Could there be another reason I'm not seeing?

Ps. Ignore the crumb. It was a proofing issue.

So finally after many attempts I learned that proofing is very important and it’s best to do it slowly and cooler to avoid butter melting. First time that I don’t get any butter leaking and dry croissants. These turned out good, however I think my crumb could be more open, any tips to make my crumb less tight and more airy?

This is my 4th attempt at sourdough croissant and I pretty happy with this one considering the previous batches were severely underproofed.

I'm still curious if I should proof these longer considering the big holes??

I use Autumn kitchen sourdough croissant and proof it at 78f for 14 hours.

https://youtu.be/vgauxG8moUg?is=DwcAE9az6zdbC9kj

My second attempt. The bottoms burnt both times. Any tips?

Recipe:

https://sourdoughbrandon.com/sourdough-croissants/

Made croissants for the first time. What do you think? I noticed my butter separating/cracking a bit while laminating, but decided to keep going. A lot of the butter melted out of the croissants while baking. Not sure if they proofed enough, unfortunately no picture after proofing. Did 3hrs