Croissants Dough

Although making croissants is so intimidating and time-consuming, it is well worth the effort with lots of Oohs! and Aahs! from your friends. No one has to be an expert to make this flaky, buttery dough. There are many good lessons on the Internet showing how to make croissants, but the secret that I learned from failing many times is the longer the dough is refrigerated before the final shaping, the flakier the croissants will be. Using a bread machine definitely helps making this croissant dough much easier than you think. Believed me, I am not an expert.

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 tbs dry milk powder
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbs soft butter or shortening
3 cups bread flour
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 sticks cold butter, thinly cut
1 egg white beaten

Directions:
In a bread pan, add all the ingredients in the order listed above except the 1 1/2 sticks of butter and egg white. Select the dough button on the bread machine and press start.
When the dough cycle is done, remove the dough from the bread pan. Place dough into an oily bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 40 minutes.
Roll dough out onto lightly floured surface into a 11" x 12" rectangle.

Place the cold butter in the center of the dough.

Fold dough over to cover butter completely.

Fold dough in half. (See photo).

Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 40 minutes.

Place dough onto lightly floured surface. Use rolling pin to roll dough out again as previously. Then fold dough the same as the photo above. Refrigerate for another 40 minutes. Repeat these steps a total of five times, and this will result in flakier dough.
After these procedures, there are two options available: put the dough in the freezer for future use (it can be stored for a long time), or use the dough immediately to make croissants. Before baking, do the following:
First, roll the dough into a 15" x 12" rectangle.

Second, cut the rectangle in half lengthwise, resulting in two 15" x 6" rectangles.
Third, cut each of the 15" x 6" rectangles into four equal sized 3.75" x 6" new rectangles (8 total).
Finally, cut each of the 8 new rectangles diagonally, resulting in 16 triangles.

Roll each triangle into a crescent shape(see photo below).

Brush the croissants with the egg wash. The croissants can be baked immediately or covered with plastic wrap and kept in the refrigerator to be baked in the morning. 

Pre-heat oven to 400°. Bake for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 325° and bake the croisants further for another 10 minutes