Nutella filled Croissants

I have a love and hate relationship with croissants. Creating them, I mean. Because unless you have tried to make them yourself, it's impossible to even imagine the amount of work that is behind these lovely crescents.

First of all, you need excellent ingredients. Butter. Flour. These are the most important components to croissants. Buy good quality, it's worth the investment. 

Second of all, find a good recipe. Well, I help you with this one ;) I have found an amazing recipe! I've tried so so so so many of them that might have worked for some, but they never did for me. I never got the buttery, crunchy outside- pillow-soft inside pastry that I was looking for. But this recipe got the magic! It really does!

Look!

I also made them insanely sinful! Stuffed most of them with the smooth, wonderful Nutella. Oh my, they were just downright the closest thing to get to heaven while sinning. 

So if you've got a day when you have nothing better to do, then make it a croissant day! I will link the recipe that will provide you amazing gif.s that help tons to replicate the perfect consistency!

Have fun with it! ;)

Homemade Nutella filled Croissants

recipe is from the lovely Top with Cinnamon

1 cup (250 ml) milk - the original recipe calls for cold milk but I needed to heat it for the yeast

1/2 cup (125 ml) boiling water

1 Tbsp active dry yeast

1/4 cup (50 gr) sugar

3 3/4 cup (500 gr) all-purpose flour - I used pastry flour

1 tsp salt

1 cup+2 Tbsp butter (250 gr) - frozen, and left at room temperature for 30 min.

In a small bowl, mix together the milk, boiling water, sugar and yeast. Cover it and let it sit for 5 minutes until it becoms frothy.If it's not frothy, you might have to heat it in the microwave for a few seconds. 

In a big bowl, measure out the flour, salt and pour the frothy yeasty milk mixture on it. Incorporate it with your hands into a ball. Knead the dough until it incorporated all the flour. Place the dough into an oiled bowl and let it chill in teh fridge for an hour.

When your dough has been in the fridge for 30 min, grate your cold butter onto a piece of plastic wrap. Flatten and shape the grated butter (will look like grated cheese) into a rectangle, about 12cmX20cm in size. Fold the wrap around it tightly. Chill in the fridge for 30 min.

When your dough has been in the fridge for an hour, take it out and roll it on a floured surface to a 25cmX40cm rectangle. 

Unwrap the butter and place into the center of the dough. The butter's longer side should be almost the same size as the dough's shorter side. Fold the dough into thirds over the butter, like a business letter. Seal all the edges by pinching the dough together.

Rotate the dough 90degrees and using the rolling pin to make regular indentations in the dough (this will help to incorporate the butter in the dough).

Roll it into a rectangle again.

Fold it into thirds like a business letter and wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge for an hour.

Remove from the fridge after an hour and do the same rolling and folding as you did before. Put it back in the fridge for an hour. Repeat this 2 more times, so 4 folds all together.

Cut the dough into quarters and refridgerate the dough for 8 hours.

Take out one piece of dough. Put it on a lightly floured surface and roll it to a 15cmX25 rectangle. Cut into thirds, forming 3 smaller rectangles. Cut each of the rectangles half diagonally, forming 6 triangles.

Take one triangle and pull on the corners of the shortest edge, to even up the base of the triangle. Then gently stretch the dough a little and cut a small slit in the base of the triangle, stretch it, then roll the dough up. If you want to fill it with nutella. Place a teaspoon of Nutella at the bottom of the triangle and then roll it up.

Place it on a cookie sheet and do the same with the rest of the dough. Cover them loosely with a plastic wrap and let them rise on room temp. for 2 hours. 

Once ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (22o degrees C) . Brush the croissants with beaten egg using a pastry brush and put into the oven. Immediately lower the temperature to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C), and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until well browned and puffy.