Making croissants at home is not for the weak. They’re notoriously difficult to master but the reward is in the trying. And who better to guide you on this journey than chef Dominique Ansel, the pastry chef and owner of Dominique Ansel Bakery, Dominique Ansel Workshop, and Papa D’Amour in New York City. Though perhaps most famously known for his viral Cronuts, Ansel is first and foremost a croissant head. As he tells it, his head bakers have been instructed to send him a picture first thing every morning of the day’s freshly baked croissants. Through his phone, Ansel is able to examine the cross section of the croissant and deduce every nuance of the dough, knowing at a glance if the lamination was done correctly.
If you’d like to reach that level of expertise, it’s wise to get cracking now. Ansel admits making croissants at home is particularly tough because we lack the industrial dough sheeter (which rolls dough with gentle and even pressure) and copious refrigeration of commercial kitchens. But it can be done! Break the process up over several days—the dough and butter block on day one, the shaping and baking on day two. Before you begin, clear enough space in your fridge to fit a large rimmed baking sheet. In the game of man versus temperature, you want to be the winner. The goal is to have the butter and the dough always be the same temperature (and neither too warm nor too cold) so they can be manipulated as a whole.
As always, weighing your ingredients, particularly the flour, is preferable to measuring with cups.
WATCH: How Dominique Ansel Makes Perfect Croissants
