Making a butter block, or skills I never thought I'd need

I've never taken a baking or cooking class. I learned to bake from my parents primarily and the occasional show on the Food Network. Both my parents are exceptional bakers; my dad makes the best apple pie and pecan pie I've ever eaten. The apple pie is so good that recently he was asked to make them for people he doesn't even know (it's a long story). I'm always really excited when I go over to their house and there's pie. My dad gets me. He's also the banana bread maker in the family. It's a gift. My mom taught me everything I know about cakes and cookies. She used to make elaborate character cakes for birthdays when we were younger. I had a Holly Hobby cake that she still talks about. She also taught me the fine art of making snowball cookies, a family favorite for Christmas.

The more complicated and/or random confections I've made over the years have been on my own - the Italian orange cake that takes three days to make, homemade poptarts, learning how to make marshmallows and marshmallow fluff, tomato soup cake. The solitary nature of baking appeals to my more introverted nature. It's also precise and requires a level of concentration that I find satisfying. I never considered myself much of a science person until I started baking as a hobby. Being a home baker is the closest thing to being a mad scientist I will ever get to be.

There are some baked items that I have not tried on my own, mostly because I find them intimidating and the perfectionist in me hates to have any sort of baking failure. I don't make a lot of breads. I've never made macarons despite really wanting to try. I've also never made croissants. Three days to bake a cake - easy! Having to make pastry dough or temperamental meringue cookies freaks me out just a bit. So I did what anyone would do; I signed up for a croissant making class. I've already achieved one of my goals for 2018. It's very satisfying.

As I've never a baking class before, I didn't know what to expect from the experience. Who else takes a croissant making class? Would I completely mess up my group's batch? The class was made up a couple, a group of four (grandmother, granddaughter, mom, and an aunt I believe), a few friends taking the class together, and a few other singletons like me (that's what our chef called us). It was a nice range ages, mostly women (there were two guys), and many of us were experiencing our first class. The chef, Chef Penny, spent time in France before opening her own bakery here in the DC area. She eventually sold the bakery and has been working as one of the in-house chefs at Sur La Table for two years. She's also got a cool project in the works; opening a commercial kitchen to help foster women-run baking businesses. She is an excellent instructor. She explained everything clearly and is awesome at demoing techniques. She also shared tips and what works for her with making croissants. I took a lot of notes.

My group consisted of a couple and another woman, probably a little younger than me (I'm terrible at guessing age). The couple took a class previously, although not a baking class. They were very nice to work with and I didn't mess up our batch of dough. I got to do the initial rolling for our batch. Rolling out dough is one of those things I do pretty sparingly. Most of what I make regularly doesn't require rolling out dough so my technique is not awesome. My baking group was very encouraging, which helped a lot. Practicing today and watching Chef Penny helped a lot. I feel more confident in my rolling abilities after only four hours.

Since I bake alone, I'm not used to stopping and giving other people a chance to try something so I did have to think a bit more about what I was doing and whether I was giving my group equal time. We worked well together and took turns rolling out the dough, measuring, and rolling up our little croissants. We focused on classic croissants first, learning how to cut the triangles (there are specific measurements that help keep the croissants uniform so they bake evenly) and roll the dough into the classic shape. I added French ham and Gruyere cheese to one of mine; it was delicious. After getting the classic croissants ready to proof, we moved onto a recipe for morning buns. Morning buns are, to quote Chef Penny, what would happen if a croissant and a cinnamon roll had a baby. Basically, you fill a 18x11 rectangle of dough with cinnamon and sugar, roll it up tight, and slice into equal pieces. Each piece is placed in a muffin tin and baked until the sugar gets all crystallized and delicious.

While we waited for our croissants and buns to proof and then bake, Chef Penny took us through how to make the dough, how to create a butter block, how to do a French lock-in for the butter, and how to turn our dough (three times). The dough we worked with initially was made in advance since it needed to sit overnight. We each got to take a baby dough home with us and it's with this dough that we practiced locking in butter and folding create the layers (turning). Creating a butter block is exactly what it sounds like; it's a block of butter, shaped into an 8 inch square that is eventually folded into the dough three times. The French word for butter block is beurrage, but butter block makes me laugh so I don't think I'll ever use beurrage.

The turns are what give the croissant its layers and flakiness. The technique we learned today involved three turns, two letter folds and one book fold. We folded the butter block into the first letter fold, refrigerated for an hour and then completed a book fold while everything finished baking. I did the third fold, another letter fold, when I got home. While not "easy," like making chocolate chip cookies, once I knew the techniques, I didn't feel intimidated by them. It's rolling dough to a specific measurement (reminder: invest in a ruler for my kitchen), folding it in a specific way, and waiting to do the process all over again. Croissants are not quick and that's what makes them even more delicious.

And delicious they were. We got to sample our work and it was amazing if I do say so myself. I tried a classic croissant while still in class. It was flaky and messy as it should be. Croissants should be messy; that's how you know it's good. Chef Penny and her kitchen assistants also made the scraps from our batches into monkey bread. I sampled some of that too; it was delicious.

This is a photo of one of my croissants; the inside should look like a honeycomb (which it does) and the outside is dark, indicating that it caramelized. A darker bake is better, it's more flavorful and frankly, prettier. Those were just a few fun facts about croissants I learned today.

Tomorrow, I'll make my baby dough batch of croissants. I'll roll them out and cut and roll them as I learned today (they should look like the Eiffel Tower as you roll them into the crescent shape). Next, I'll do the entire process myself. Taking this class was one part of a larger learning experience. I have to take my new skills and practice them. I have to mess up a few times (I'm sure I will) before I get a passable croissant. I'm totally onboard for this challenge.

So, I promise between now and March I will make at least one batch croissants from start to finish. I'll invest in some European butter (preferred because of its higher fat content), get a kitchen ruler, dust off my kitchen scale (not required but recommended), and get rolling.

And because I couldn't help myself, I also bought a Madeleine pan today. If the Transporter can have one, why can't I?

Coming in February: Stuff I Love returns! There's an appropriately themed Lazy Movie Weekend, we'll talk crafting and wine drinking, and a few little surprises for the month of February. Check it out!