You Googled Me?: Croissants and Brioche

 

Wow, been getting a lot of Google seekers coming to visit, drawn by a rather thin promise of "croissants" or "brioche".

 

I’ve already provided a bread machine dough recipe for brioche dough that I use in Petit Pain au Chocolat, but it looks like maybe I need to come up with a few more resources.

 

Quick and dirty:  for those of you who don’t actually want to get flour under your nails but who want that heavenly smell of freshly baked dough and want it bad…

 

§         Croissants can be ordered from Williams-Sonoma.  Not cheap at $39.50 for 15 croissants – your choice of plain, cheese or chocolate (yum!).  These arrive frozen, ready to thaw, raise and bake.

 

§         Brioche can also be had from Williams-Sonoma.  Also not cheap at $38.00 for 13 brioche; the brioche molds are actually cheaper than the dough!  Same as croissants, they arrive frozen, ready to thaw, raise and bake.

 

You can still say you made them when you’re done.  Okay, maybe a little dusting of flour on an apron will help…an insulated baking sheet would help, too.

 

Another option you can try: check with your local bakery and see if they have pre-made dough they will sell you.  Can’t hurt, might help, and it’ll probably be far less expensive than Williams-Sonoma!

 

So you’d like to attempt making them, but you’re a little hesitant:

 

§         See this recipe for Croissants by Jacques Torres at FoodTV – you can catch the program with Jacques actually making these on 29-JAN-2003 at 12pm ET.  (I don’t care for Jacques myself, but hey, beats having to sign up for and go to a cooking class to learn!)  This recipe also includes “pain au chocolat” (croissant dough with chocolate inside).

 

§         There’s another recipe for Croissants at FoodTV, this time presented by Sweet Dreams host – but I can’t get the d*mned thing to come up, some bug with the FoodTV site script or their server.  I’ll come back and add it here when the bug clears up.

 

§         For some more coaching, check out the “Knead Dough” and “Roll Dough” videos available at FoodTV under Cooking 101 (use the drop-down menu to select the videos).

 

§         As for Brioche – same thing, FoodTV site is NOT cooperating.  I’ll come back here to post info once they get their act together.

 

§         For either Brioche or Croissant dough, I cannot recommend enough Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook.  It’s the easiest way to get great results with least amount of effort and expense if you have a bread machine.  Buy it now, it’s worth far more than the pittance of $15 or so dollars.

 

For the real stuff with your own blood, sweat-n-tears:  the Full Monty, the whole enchilada, to appease the masochist in you, and you don’t need no stinkin’ help…

 

§         Natch, Epicurious has Croissant Dough.  It says not to halve the recipe.  Go for it, be prepared to dole these babies out, yields somewhere between 24 croissants or 32 pain au chocolat.  (Nope, I haven’t made this recipe – but it looks like it’s highly recommended.  There are more recipes than this one at Epicurious, but this one looked straightforward and was well-rated.)

 

§         Epicurious also offers Brioche, but this recipe is not as well-rated as I would like.  Read the reviews – maybe you’ll feel better after reading about the other bakers’ concerns.  Chances are (based on the feedback from this site) you won’t find a better recipe on the internet.  You will need to make sure you allow yourself time for a starter, so plan ahead.

 

§         Two folks whose cookbooks you should consider consulting for croissants and brioche are Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.  Both are no-nonsense, easy-to-follow cooking instructors (although Julia is a little, hmm, less than forthcoming at times, as Julie Powell can attest).  You can find their cookbooks readily at Amazon.com.

 

Final notes --

 

If you’re going to brave this fjord on your own, whether you use a machine or do it long hand:  Don’t scrimp on the yeast or butter – make sure you get the good stuff if you are trying for croissants and brioche for the first time.  Sure, it can be an expensive mistake if you goof up, but if you don’t use the right ingredients you’ll never know whether it was something you did, something wrong with the recipe or bad ingredients.  You can narrow it down and improve your odds using the right stuff.

 

If it says unsalted butter, make sure you use it – it has less moisture than salted butter, which can make a big difference in baked goods.

 

Use Kosher salt if at all possible; iodized salt is fine for day-to-day cooking, but it can add a bitter metallic taste.  Pickling salt is pure salt and will not add any off-flavors, but it is more concentrated than Kosher salt and might make your results saltier than desired or affect the rising of yeast (not in a good way).

 

And always read ahead days before you start this stuff, in case either a specific kind of flour, yeast or starter is required.  Been there, done that, not good, lived to testify about it.

 

Good luck!

  7:21:29 PM    comment []

RantsCounterRants:  That Venezuelan thing and my grubby, nasty American fingers all over it…

 

Miguel’s continuing his highly admirable job of coverage of the Venezuelan crisis, with a perspective only one living the crisis could offer.

 

Naturally, he’s attracted e-mails and comments about his posts and about the crisis itself.

 

One such recent comment annoyed me greatly – I’m not certain to attribute the vituperative attitude toward ignorance about Americans and their slacking press; or is it the attitude is rightly directed toward Americans’ slacking, warmongering leadership, which has turned a blind eye to the entire Venezuelan debacle?

 

In any event, the comment’s author certainly doesn’t understand MY opinion as an American of the crisis.

 

§         I don’t believe that Chavez has displayed a competency required of him as a democratically elected representative of the Venezuelan people.  I’ve seen too much in what little press is available that implicates him as a fascist; he appears to have abused the powers and privileges accorded him as elected leader.  I believe that any democratically elected position should be open for change at the will of the people, if gross neglect or abuses become manifest to the electorate.  If that’s the will of the Venezuelan public, so be it.  Peoples of other democratic nations deserve nothing less than this same democratic right that I have, perhaps they deserve even more.  (A number of Americans attempted impeachment of our previous President for far less, not waiting for an election; the President did not interfere with requests for impeachment by messing with Congress or the Constitution.)

 

§         I don’t want Venezuelan oil; I’d rather we Americans used this crisis as an opportunity to examine our oil consumption and push initiatives to reduce use through investment in alternative energy and conservation technologies.  But I also don’t want the ineptitude and corruption of a single person to cause disruptions in world commodity markets that harms not only the Venezuelan people, but the rest of the world economy.  I do want the Venezuelan people to prosper from the rich resources and skills that they possess; I want the companies that invest in Venezuela to do so also, a fair trade of profits for the risk of committed capital investment.  So far Chavez has performed so miserably that no group, not the Venezuelan people, not the investors, not the rest of the stakeholders in this global economy have benefited from his tenure.  This situation needs to be rectified with speed, before additional innocents outside of Venezuela are made to suffer. 

 

§         I don’t want physical intervention through the use of U.S. troops anywhere in the world, except at the behest of the U.N. Security Council, or when gross abuses by governments and armies against unarmed citizens dictate intervention (remember Srebrenica?  Have the people of the world forgotten already? Have we forgotten the human cost of turning our backs on Rwanda?).   Americans should not commit lightly our sons and daughters, our fathers and mothers, putting them at risk for aid of others.  But neither does the nature and scale of problems in Venezuela documented by COFAVIC and OAS warrant a blind eye – this disturbance threatens the peaceable peoples of the Americas (Venezuelan is but a short flight away from American soil, far closer than Iraq or North Korea, and far too integral to the rest of the OAS to be ignored).  Immediate American intervention of a diplomatic nature is warranted for this reason, in concert with continued efforts by the OAS.

 

§         I don’t advocate or endorse in any way, shape or form the lack of air time the Venezuelan crisis has received from the U.S. press and government.  It’s deplorable that a situation of this magnitude which affects this hemisphere and the entire global economy is suppressed in the news.  If there are more to each of the many sides of the Venezuelan story, we Americans certainly can’t see them and make a better, fully educated assessment for the dearth of information provided.  I do want both Venezuelans and Americans to have a free press and more open government; it’s what we merit as humans.

 

There, got my nasty, grubby American fingerprints all over that Venezuelan thing.  In America we say, BITE ME, Mr. Bignotti.

  8:54:49 AM    comment []