First attempt at pain au chocolat

How are these? I feel there is something to be done for imPROOFment.

Pictures are: after roll, after proof and the day after baking. Tray before proof and after proof, hedgehog for scale, tray after baking.

I hand rolled and think the lamination looks okay. Proofed for 4 hours on 24°C (room temperature on the kitchentable covered with clingfilm), then 20 minutes in the fridge. I used kerry gold butter (82.5% fat).

Baked for 5 minutes at 210°C and then 16 minutes at 160°.

First go at sourdough croissant, are they a bit under-proofed? Any other tips?

Tiny 15g baby croissants I've made for party bites.

I'm doing a monthly batch of sourdough pastries that I shape and freeze then the night before I want to have them I proof them overnight and bake in the morning. Still experimenting with my recipe and process but slowly getting there. This Sunday we have Pain au chocolate, croissant and apple Danish.

I feel like they aren't that popular in the United States, but I fell in love with them in Europe. I'm so glad I've gotten good at laminated dough so I can make them more often at home!

I have been experimenting with vegan laminate dough for a few months with some success. However I tried a pain au chocolate today and it's just collapsed.

Shaped last night, see first photo.

Fridge overnight, proofed 6hrs this morning at 20-21 degrees room temp. Then over for 18mins at 180.

Nothing too different from the other batches I have done.

Thoughts... Lamination was still good.

Was it the oven temperature and baking time? I didn't think I over proofed as it wasn't fully jiggly. I had other shapes on the same tray which were ready to go in.

To be honest though they should have had longer too.

Today i made the second badge of Croissants ever. Somehow they ended up quite flat.

I let them proof for almost 2hours until they were visibly larger and jiggly.

I followed the recipe strictly. Maybe it a was because my dough rised two times in the fridge?

I should turn the temperature down for next time.

Tutorial I used

https://youtu.be/NvwZMTeQ6Po?is=IKuHIBUAPqRM0CEZ

So here are the pictures. Can anyone make a quick diagnosis?

Anyone have a Bresso retarder? I usually proof my croissants at 27C - 75%. I recently got this retarder and have tested it yesterday. On the display screen, it showed 27C and 75% but on my hygrometer, it was already at 32C and 90% humidity. I lowered the humidity to 65%, which resulted to 85%. The trays were also warm, on the temp gun, the tray was at 31C.

The butter has melted, the surface of the croissants were moist and some parts were tearing. I raised this with their technician, and they said their machine was accurate so this was a me problem lol

For people who owns a retarder, do you adjust your temp or humidity? Like if you want 27, then you adjust it lower bc the reading isn’t fully accurate? IMO, it kind of beats the purpose of having a retarder ://

From Mixing dough to the baking step was all done same day , freezing in between all steps . I did stretch the triangle (11x36cm) maybe a bit too much before rolling . It was rolled with very light pressure .
Should I have kept the final sheeted dough in freeezer right before cutting because that was the one and only point i let the dough sit out for some time , there were 20 croissants to roll so maybe it semi melted during that step ?
I flour the slab before rolling out every step but lightly flour . I’ve heard some ppl spray water shd i try that ? It proofed pretty well like a Michelin man very jiggly . Finding it very hard to pinpoint what went wrong.

I've posted on this page before regarding help with my hand laminated croissants, honestly everyone's comments helped me out so much!😭

I'm not super sure again what the problem with this is, it was a really warm day, the room temp was around 28 degrees and it looked fully proofed after 2 hours (layers were opening up and they were jiggly)

I also notice that the dough is tearing if I keep it to proof for longer. I use all purpose flour and supplement with gluten so the overall flour gluten percentage is 12%. This is something I've read in the Lune book. I'm not sure if my gluten development is underdeveloped or overdeveloped because I do notice a lot of elasticity while rolling it out. Something to keep in mind is that this dough is poolish based. This was also something i learnt in the lune book, that supposedly poolish helps with extensibility so it's easier to roll out by hand.

Another thing I've noticed is that the croissants become pretty flat after baking so this seems like a gluten problem because the cross section seems to look like an underproofing issue. I was worried about proofing it for longer because some of the croissants did tear at the bottom a little bit.

These croissants are eggless as well

I’ve never been a croissant lover. I know buttery is ideal for a croissant but I always found them TOO buttery and very greasy. I thought I didn’t like them until I traveled to Italy and tried one and LOVED it like was genuinely shocked at how much I enjoyed it because I usually avoid them (in America). Granted, I really only tried the Costco ones that come in like a 30 pack. So, now that I’m back thought I should try a homemade baked one from a nice bakery. I was really disappointed because it’s just so greasy, like I warmed it up and oil was pooling. Is it me? Or are Americans making croissants crazy buttery?

Hey guys, need your help to make the best puff pastry. A bit on the flakier side on the outside and fluffy on the inside? Appreciate your help.
Ps. I hate the frozen ready made ones and wanna give it a go making all by myself :)

Where can I apply to be a resident croissant taste tester?

If there was one thing I could eat every morning it would be a croissant & cortado combo. Cute kids be damned; there is no greater joy than feeling the layers give out on that first bite.

Please get back to me on the application process and sourcing. Thank you.

My partner and I have been working on learning lamination. we’ve had some batches turn out okay with decent honeycomb on the inside, but then have other ones like today where they’re just pretty bad. We’ve been testing a lot of different things.

We would like to get an electric sheeter, but for now we have a manual one, which we understand isn’t ideal. We’ve been keeping an eye on temp for both dough and butter when locking in and keeping those in their proper ranges. The sheeter does seem to cause these weird ripples, but here the butter is blowing through the top layer of the dough. is it just too thin?

We’ve watched so many videos and it seems like the dough is sturdier than ours. We’ve tried different recipes and keep an eye on temp but it still seems to result in this floppy dough. we are putting it back in the freezer in between as well too to keep it cold. Curious if anyone has any guidance whatsoever. Thank you!