The Easiest Croissants Recipe | No Folding Required
Emma Fontanella’s easy artisan croissants
About My Easy Croissants Recipe
If you’ve ever been tempted to make your own croissants, but have been put off by how difficult it seems, this is the recipe for you! I think this is the easiest and fastest way to make true artisan-style croissants. With this method, you get everything you want from a croissant—beautifully defined, soft buttery layers; with a crispy, flaky outside. Just like you might find in French patisserie. But, you don’t need the difficult, painstaking process of folding a cold block of butter into a dough to create a laminated product.
If you know how to make croissants in the traditional way, you’ll know it takes over a day. This recipe is much easier and faster. It’s inspired by methods for quickly laminating doughs developed in the Indian subcontinent and the southern United States. We use the "French" quantity of butter and a little French pastry technique to give you true artisan croissants with the most beautifully defined layers. These croissants are incredible—you must try them!
This recipe is taken from my cookbook, Simple Pleasures.
What makes the best croissant?
In France, there are many variations of croissants, but they tend to fall into two different styles. There are the croissants you might find in a patisserie in major cities like Paris. These are quite refined pastries—light with an open, layered texture, and buttery flavor. Then, there are the croissants you will find in a typical bakery. These tend to be more doughy and bready inside. Sometimes these are made with margerine to save money. Both styles have crispy, flaky outsides. Both styles have their place, but the buttery, open-textured patisserie-style croissants are regarded as the best.
Is it hard to make croissants?
Making great croissants is often seen as a kind of baking quest, where getting good results takes lots of practice. The traditional method is certainly challenging. It takes 2 days because of the resting and folding steps and the need to keep the dough and butter cold throughout the whole process. With the traditional method, you also need to make a large quantity of dough, otherwise the folding process is too difficult and the lamination will fail. You also need lots of counter space for rolling out the dough. Many people’s home kitchens aren’t big enough for this. That was the inspiration for this recipe—to create a way of making amazing croissants with all these difficulties removed, so anyone can make them.
What was the inspiration for this technique for making croissants?
The traditional French method for creating the laminated dough for croissants is time-consuming and difficult because you need to keep everything cold at all times. Rolling out the dough with the traditional method also needs lots of kitchen space. So for this recipe, we borrow ideas from other cultures which have easy, quick laminated doughs as part of their cuisines. By doing this, we eliminate the key problems of needing to keep everything cold as we create the laminated layers; and of the need to work in a large kitchen which most of us don’t have.
In terms of the technique, this recipe is inspired by the method used to make flatbreads called “dosti roti”. Dosti roti originated in Northern India, and are popular today in the Caribbean. In Hindi, “dosti” means “friendship” or “togetherness”. In the flatbread, two rolled out balls of dough are laminated together by brushing with oil. Thus, the two layers become “friends”.
In this recipe for making croissants, we use the same idea for quickly and easily creating laminated layers, but we use softened butter rather than oil to create the layers. And, rather than creating just two layers, we use many layers, which are needed for croissants.
Why this recipe works
A close-up cross-section of a croissant made using this quick and easy method. Note the well-defined, but soft, even, buttery interior layers; and the crisp, golden outer layers.
To end up with beautiful artisan-style croissants with well-defined, soft, buttery layers; and crispy, flaky outsides, we can’t just randomly smear butter onto the layers and hope for the best. We need to pay attention to the precise amounts of butter we use. Each layer needs a precise amount of butter. I designed the recipe so that, in the final product, we end up with what I think is the optimal amount of butter for croissants.
In professional croissant making in bakeries and patisseries, the key parameter we think about is the “butter to dough” ratio. In this recipe, we end up with croissants that have a 29% butter to dough ratio, which I think is the perfect amount. That’s higher than the 25% figure that many commercial recipes use—good butter is expensive, and people like to save money on butter! Here, though, we’re optimizing for flavor and texture!
How do you freeze croissants?
Bake the croissants. Allow them to cool completely, then pop them in a zip top bag and freeze.
How do you reheat frozen croissants?
If you’ve frozen croissants when they’re baked, they’re super easy to reheat. Put them in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 to 4 minutes. They come out as if they were freshly baked!
Step-by-step photos for making the croissants
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
INGREDIENTS
INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOUGH
1 cup (240g) whole milk
1 medium egg, at room temperature
2 tsp (7g) active dry yeast
3 cups (420g) all-purpose flour
3 tbsp (35g) granulated white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp (30g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
FOR THE LAYERS
16 tbsp (2 sticks / 230g)
unsalted butter, at room temperature
FOR THE EGG WASH
1 medium egg, beaten
INSTRUCTIONS
Prepare all the ingredients
It's important to have all your ingredients ready to work with. For example, you will need to take your butter out of the fridge well in advance of starting the recipe to allow it to come up to room temperature.
Activate the yeast
In a medium, microwave-safe bowl or glass measuring cup, microwave the milk until lukewarm, about 30 to 40 seconds (don't let it get hot). Whisk the egg into the milk and add the yeast . Allow this mixture to sit for 5 minutes.
Make the dough
To a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, add the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the milk/egg mixture and mix on a slow speed for 2 minutes, then on a medium speed for another 3 minutes. With the mixer running, add the 2 tablespoons of butter. Continue mixing for 5 minutes more.
Allow the dough to rest
Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap. Allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. (Don't leave it longer than this.)
Divide the dough
The croissant dough divided into 12 portions and rolled into balls.
Divide the dough into 12 equal portions and roll into balls. Lightly flour the dough balls and your work surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough balls into circles about 7 inches (18cm) in diameter. (See photos above in the section “Step-by-step photos“.)
(Hack: If you have a tortilla press, you can use that to make this step of preparing the circles of dough even easier and faster.)
Layer the dough
Spreading butter on the layers of dough.
Divide the 2 sticks of room-temperature butter into 11 equal portions (about 20 grams per portion). The butter needs to be super soft and spreadable, so whip it if it's not soft enough. Smear the top surface of all but one of the dough circles with the portions of butter, and layer the buttered circles of dough on top of each other. It's best to assemble the layers on a baking tray or cutting board to make it easy to transfer the stack to the freezer later.
Assembling the layers of croissant dough.
Use the unbuttered circle as the top layer. Do your best to keep the circles evenly sized, but don't worry if they're a bit uneven. Gently press the stack of disks together using a rolling pin. Cover the stack with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 30 minutes-don't leave it longer than this.
Prepare the baking sheet
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Prepare the croissants
The stack of layers, rolled out into a large circle (14 to 15 inches in diameter).
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the stack of dough thinly into a large circle 14 to 15 inches (35-40cm) in diameter. Keep moving the dough around so it doesn't stick to your work surface. If the dough starts to stick, dust with a little more flour. Try to make the circle as evenly shaped as possible.
The large circle of dough cut into 12 equal segments. Each segment will form one croissant.
Using a sharp knife, cut the circle into quarters, and then cut each quarter into 3 equal "triangles," creating 12 equal triangles of dough in total. Each triangle of dough will form one croissant.
Roll up the croissants
Rolling up the croissants.
Starting at the wide base of the triangle, roll each croissant up tightly, all the way until you get to the pointed end. Gently bend the croissant into a crescent shape. Place the rolled croissants on the prepared baking sheet, leaving a good amount of space between each one.
Allow the croissants to rise
Cover the croissants with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature for 3 hours or until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven
Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200°C).
Bake the croissants
Gently brush the top surface of each croissant with beaten egg.
Put the croissants into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn the oven down to 350°F (180°C). Continue baking for 8 to 10 minutes more until the croissants are golden brown in color.
Serve
Remove the croissants from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Serve while they're still warm.
Watch the video for more tips
Easiest Croissants Recipe
Hi! I’m Emma Fontanella. Here you’ll find trusted, tested recipes to satisfy your baking addiction and carb cravings. Learn more…
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