Sourdough Croissants!

Congratulations,Dom!

It's a challenge, as it is, for me to make regular croissants. Besides, I like my buttah. Croissants aren't in my To Do Soon List. I still need to make that Sprouted Loaf.

Martin, love to see you're always up for challenges. Keep us posted.

G'day guys,

It's a new format but works, ok. Nice to see the place alive again. I've been busy at home and in NZ fishing.

Just a thought, why use maragrine or some other solid fat for croissants, when pure unadulterated butter has a superior flavour. Dare I say it,  marge  is a poor subsitiute for butter in croissants. As far as any other fat goes in croissants doesn't make much sense to me. Sure use various fats for various applications, but an intergral part of croissant flavour and texture is only achieved with butter.

a pretty brownie from the Mataura River in NZ.

Thanks for the greeting, TP, it's good to be back.

Ok, TP, perhaps I missed that Dom was a vegan; in fact, I wasn't aware vegans did not consume butter. I guess that's up to Dom, and if his vegan views are a matter of personal conviction then I support his freedom to subscribe.

But the truth of the matter is that butter is one of the most superior baking fats, without rival.

Well, I guess you can ignore my initial post; please carry on , and good luck!

Croissants were originally made with levain,and barm, long before commercial yeasts. Ive been making sourdough croissant since the early 80`s,you will find a recipe in my Natural Tucker bread book(1983).we used to sell them at Natural Tucker bakery. I would dispute that a croissant can contain margarine and still be called a croissant. Croissant are made with butter.As margarine contains trans-fats its also bad for you, and a monstrous fake food. What you describe are "Flaky pastries"...like the roti channai... not "Croissant". Croissant are also the domain of a skilled pastry chef/baker,it takes a lot of skill and practice to get the layering right. But good work Dom.

Hi Carla..Where a location produces butter and where flour is available, butter pastries,which much later were formalised as "croissant", were commonly made even in antiquity. Like the "roti channai" mentioned.What would be called croissant today,were being made in Vienna in early historical times (prob 13thC),because the strong hungarian (Vienna) wheats produced more extensible doughs than were possible in western europe. When these wheats became available in France in the gastronomic times of the late 18th century, the flaky Viennese pastry was hijacked and became the French croissant...and "Vienna" bread became possible.

Often,a barm was used with a sourdough for this.The barm is only useful if its from an Ale (top) fermenting wort,and then,its a polyculture of various saccharomyces yeasts, including morphs of sacch cerevisiae,and others.But bakers commonly brewed these yeasts...its quite an art in itself.

Yeh i understand a vegans choice of margarine, but its a crappy fake food,thats all, which has a very bad scientific profile as a food. I dont understand how anyone with food awareness could use it?

The issue is about taxonomy...or the naming of things.In the same way sourdough bread shouldnt have yeast in it, croissant shouldnt have margarine. They are a culinary item known to be made from butter, its about authenticity. And the modern tendency to morph words so they have no actual meaning anymore is creating a virtual food world....just look at the word "natural". So im saying we need to be authentic about naming objects,particularly food.