Croissant crisis! Layers being tore apart! HEEEELP!!!
Hi guys! I've been working on my croissant project for a few months. I use this recipe from Gourmetier (https://gourmetier.com/french-croissants/). I did make a few tweaks to the original recipe (see below) but i follow the instructions very carefully.
For the croissant initial dough (détrempe)
300 g bread flour (100%)
78 g cold water (26%)
78 g cold semi-skimmed milk (26%)
45 g sugar (15%)
30 g unsalted butter (softened) (10%)
6 g salt (2%)
3 g Saf gold instant yeast (1%)
2 g diastatic malt powder (0.6%)
For laminating
171 g butter (31% of the total détrempe weight)
It took me 18 times to finally nail the lamination. Lately i tried to refrigerate the dough after the last fold, shape and proof the croissants the next morning. But then something went wrong. The top layer was tore apart during proofing. I continued to proof them for around 4 hours until they were all fat and jiggly. I kept my finger crossed but it was a disaster in the oven. I baked them in a conventional oven at 385F/196C for 20 mins. They came out flat and soggy. The layers were broken and separated. The interior seemed undercook too. This has never happened before.
Could it be the humidity problem during proofing? Because it's been raining a lot lately in where i live. Or the dough started fermenting in the fridge overnight? Or could it be simply overproof?
It'd be great if someone can give me some advice! ( ͡ಥ ͜ʖ ͡ಥ)
Here are some pics:
I think the problems is more your oven than dough.The layers are distinct, nicely separated and you got good oven spring. The recipe seems good too, mine is very similar and it works very well. The only thing that strikes me is 31% butter for lamination...20-25% is more common, but I think the dough should be able to handle 31% as well.
I guess 196°C is too hot, 175-180°C is more common. You can also see your oven heats unevenly, hence the burned layers on top and pale bottoms. Is it an old model, convection with fan?
Thank you for your feedback. My oven is the conventional/traditional one with no fan circulation. But i've previously made some nice-looking ones with the same recipe and oven. The only thing i couldn't control was the temperature and humidity during proofing, because i don't have a proofer. I just turned the AC down a little bit, egg washed the croissants and cover them with a clear plastic lid. That's why i thought it was a proofing issue.
These are pictures from before.