Croissant dough not developing gluten, at all
I've tried making croissants 3 times before this with a different recipe, Joshua Weismann's recipe. All those times failed, I thought the problem was during the lamination, and it was because the dough tore then, you'd think the supposedly hardest part would be where the screwup occurs, but it actually went back to the very start of the process, the dough strength development, all those times. My dough never seemed to be quite as strong as his, it resisted a lot. I've tried several times to improve the recipe to get at least some kind of window pane, I tried longer resting times, even tried autolysing, which just left the dough shaggy even after extensive resting and kneading, I just gave up for a few months.
Today I revisited it, using Benny's recipe, as I found it had an emphasis on temperature control (which was also a problem) which Joshua's recipe didn't have. I should note, I don't have a stand mixer so I find hand-kneaded recipes, and this is one, he only mixes the ingredients with a mixer but continues by hand. However, this recipe turned out to have the same problem as Joshua's recipe, the dough would have no windowpane at all after those 10 minutes of kneading, which, in the video, gave the dough a great windowpane right away. My attempted solution was a big number of rests and attempted re-kneading of the dough, in the fridge and sometimes even in the freezer to stay at the ideal dough temperature (20-25C). Extended the process by about 3 hours, but each time, the kneading failed to give improvements and I kept putting it back to rest again, thinking I overworked the gluten, but it was still not improving. This is the dough after all of that. I ended up just turning it into some buns because I know it'd tear very easily during lamination like last time.
P.S I used the kneading technique shown in the video, the traditional, typical one, however, before this, I also used the slap and fold technique when using Joshua's recipe. Neither worked, in fact the slap and fold felt quite unnatural because of how extremely tight the dough was, I had to put a bit of force on the dough after the fold because it sprung back and resisted the fold.
Some common advice I've seen that has not worked for me is:
Longer resting times, you can see in the text they did not help
Flour gluten percentage, which was about 12% in this case (11.7% AP with a bit of 12.7% bread just in case), and even more in my previous tries, so it can't cause problems, since the french use 11% T45
Autolysis also didn't work, it left the dough shaggy, which is very normal during autolysis, but it was left so shaggy that multiple times resting it and kneading it did not help it at all.
Have you tried varying the hydration? I find that croissant dough is very sensitive to just the right amount of hydration, which is specific to your flour.
The hydration is quite low on the dough, I just used the recipe's hydration while using almost the same gluten percentage of flour.
I think it might be worth increasing the hydration to see if that helps with making the dough more pliable? Flours vary so much with how well they absorb water. From the picture it appears to me the dough might be a little dry.
Interesting.. how can increasing hydration increase pliability? A higher hydration dough is, as a general rule, much less pliable.
This post from some years ago might be helpful -
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/52547/my-croissant-odyssey-0-ten-days
Buckwheat,
I haven’t dug into your source recipes but I just made 2 dozen croissants (good reviews from my guests) last week. My dough included a sourdough levain as well as pâte fermentée and a small amount of ADY. Have been successful with no preferments as well, though I prefer to use them if time and circumstances permit. I shoot for 56.5% hydration, though the pâte is built at 60% so total dough is still south of 60%. These days I mostly knead by machine though have done manually when away from home.
I roll out the dough and refrigerate immediately after kneading so I wonder if maybe your not working a bit too hard? And don’t sweat the windowpane quite so much. I have found that time and gluten seem to make up for an awful lot of my less than perfect technique. I continue with lamination over 2 30-90 minute refrigerated rests. The real bulk fermentation occurs during an overnight rest in the fridge and the only folds are the ones needed for the lamination process. I have held laminated dough in the fridge for up to 36 hours.
Would be glad to share more if you wish…
Bonne chance,
Phil
Haven't done any sourdough yet, does that make dough gluten development easier? Also, 56% hydration is on the very high end for laminated dough, have you experienced any problems with that? How do you get it strong by hand? I've tried that other joshua weismann recipe, it's quite similar except for the fact it has less emphasis on temp control and uses a different kneading technique, anyway I did that recipe 3 or 4 times (dont even remember anymore) and failed each time after I went on without getting a windowpane, sort of like the dough I showed in the video. The dough also resisted like hell, but I went on. The main problem wasn't the butter being too soft (though that was part of the problem, especially because I had to put in more pressure and spend more time to roll out the dough because of how weak it was). The dough resisted a lot but I just wanted to get to the recipe dimensions at all costs, and yeah, it just started resisting at some points, I tried resting it then, but it resisted all the same, and eventually there would inevitable be holes in the dough I'd have to awkwardly patch up. To be honest with you, I think lamination would be extremely easy with a dough that has a great windowpane, because that shows it won't resist, and that's the biggest problem I have had.
Hydration numbers are not comparable if you don't use the exact same flour. If you want to compare flours, then you have to compare the W and P/L values.
A few thoughts and speculations:
- use a preferment as mentioned by some other users
- add up to 1-1.5% diastatic malt (probably not a good idea in combination with a preferment)
- let the dough relax for 30min in the fridge. Knead again if needed. Repeat 1-2x if needed.
- I assume, many french recipes (probably all European recipes) use soft wheat. I guess, the gluten (W and P/L values) for the same protein percentage is behaves totally different compared to the typical bread flour (hard wheat?) available in North America. Maybe (unbleached) AP flour works better.
He actually uses soft wheat flour while I use hard wheat.. I never thought that makes a big difference, I thought protein is all that matters. Never knew what W and P/L are, and I am only able to find the W for the flour he uses (called 00 farina di grano tenero from la molisana), which is 250, but not the P/L, and neither of them for the one I use (king arthur AP and bread flour, unbleached like you mentioned, uses hard red wheat). Should I just attempt to find a soft wheat flour with a similar protein content? Or would just adjusting the hydration be enough?
Which preferment do you recommend for croissants and how much % of flour should it be?
Buckwheat,
I failed to mention that I use half pastry flour and half AP these days. Have done with all AP with no issues noted in my recipe log. Got the recipe and method from a French bakery school so am comfortable that 60-ish hydration is not crazy. I should also disclose that my liquid component is, in baker’s percentages, 21% milk, 21% water and 4% egg (egg liquid component calculated at 74% of actual weight).
Looking at your video, the dough quite resembles what my pasta dough looks like when I have not quite added enough egg. By any chance have you checked your yeast to make sure it’s active? Almost seems like very little fermentation has occurred…
Phil
There is no egg in this particular recipe, but that previous recipe I tried a few times did have egg. There was barely any fermentation because I never room-temp rested it, only rested it in the fridge and sometimes the freezer for temp control and because the rest, for me, was only needed to rest the gluten. Even then, it did unintentionally ferment quite well for being near the back of my fridge (almost 0C in there). Do you suggest I try higher hydration? I suspect the contrary though, that it would be much harder to work with.