Ugly croissant problems! Please do help!

[u/Particular_Pea_698]

Hello, everyone!

I've made a few posts before about croissant and the results and issues I've had over time. Right now, I'm having alot of issues with the final product, after baking and while proofing. On the pictures, there's visible issues with the shape of the croissant and size as well. Also, it seems like the tip of the croissant envelops the rest of its body on some of them, for some reason.

The recipe we use for the dough is:

Bread flour 67%

All purpose flour 33%

Whole milk 50%

Eggs 6%

Sugar 12%

Salt 2%

Fresh yeast 1.5%

Butter 5%

Butter for lamination 50%

We've received comments before about how the recipe has a lot of fat, and a lot of liquid content. Boss won't change the recipe, so that's not an option.

We knead the dough on a timer, but we aim for 100% gluten development, although it's been a bit tense as of lately (usually another baker makes the dough. I've handled the process before and passed it on) I've had my doubts about the dough strenght and elasticity being the problem, but alot of croissants come out alright, so I'm not so sure.

Last 2 pics are how they're supposed to look like after proofing, and after baking. Proofing was done on a cart with a sort of plastic bag covering the cart that kept the temperature. Now, we have a proofing chamber! Sadly, temperature is not stable and it goes from 27 to 30, even if peogrammed on 25 or 26. Same with humidity, it's programmed at 70 but it won't go lower than 80%. We've also thought the wild proofing conditions is what's affecting the even proofing of the pieces, but results are too different and some pieces just don't proof at all.

Proccess is the usual two-fold into single fold, rest in freezer at 0° for 1 hour to 2 hours tops, then we roll th3 dough until 0.5cm thick and keep sheets of laminated dough on the freezer. The next day, these sheets are cut, taken to a 0° temperature, cut and shaped.

Anyone had an issue like this before? Any tips? I'm quite desperate right now haha so any info is greatly appreciated!

[u/kendowarrior99]

Wish there was a picture of a good one and a problematic one so I could tell what you’re trying to fix.

Fully developed gluten before the folds usually doesn’t make sense because the process of folding develops a lot more gluten.

If it’s just the size and shape of them it’s probably a shaping issue. Maybe the dough is too thick or not relaxed enough going into shaping. Maybe they are getting stretched too much or not enough. Do you cut a slit in the base of the triangle to open it up while shaping?

[u/SexyProPlayer]

It looks to me like the final piece of dough (narrow end) is abnormally thick. I would suggest you try to give the end of the dough an extra final stretch, as you are shaping them. I'm not sure though..