KatieH's Reviews
2 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 2Sort by: Title 
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Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day
By Peter Reinhart
Ten Speed Press - 2009
Croissants : page 181
My first time making croissant or any kind of laminated dough. It wasn't as difficult as I had feared, but not easy either. The primary challenge I had was rolling out the dough--when I roll out dough, it tends to form tapering "tails" instead of being nice and square. So none of my letter folds were perfect, since a slightly rounded edge doesn't square up properly. So my final "loaf" of dough was a bit lopsided. And rolling it out... I could never get 27 inches across. The dough sprung back quite a bit. So my croissants were quite thick. Finally, in all that rolling, I did break some layers, and quite a bit of butter poured out during baking. I'd definitely bake in a sheet pan with sides for that reason.
All the "disasters" accounted for... in the end my croissants looked pretty darn good! And they tasted amazing. Pretty much the best I've ever had, taste wise. I used half the dough to make cheese danish, and.... wow. So good. The cheese filling compresses the puff and almost caramelizes the dough. Awesome.
I used half King Arthur bread flour and half AP. I think I would try all AP next time. And it was a very warm day... might wait for a cooler day, too.
But I will definitely try again!
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Struan : page 91
Great bread... soft, sweet, lovely dark golden crust with bubbles. Despite all the different grains in it, you don't notice them individually (even the rice, I only notice it if a kernel is peeking out the top). Keeps very well, for several days without going stale. Slices easily without crumbling. Can slice very very thin, too, which I love.
But it does make small loaves. I use a 9 by 5 pyrex pan (which is thick glass so I think it is smaller than that) and it doesn't dome very high. I too think I will do the math to scale up to my 9.5 by 5.5 metal pans.
P.s. My pic is the one with the home-made mango jam. Goes great together!
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