The art of making pastry, I discovered takes allot of time, effort and patience. The most important thing though, is to use good quality butter. When I first starting making croissant and danish pastry, I used my local supermarkets brand of butter. After baking the pastries, I noticed that their was allot of melted butter oil, left on the baking tray, when I took them out of the oven. They did not rise much, had an okay buttery taste and were not that flaky. I thought the issue maybe had to do with my baking skills.
I was so wrong, After asking for and hearing feedback from my fellow bakers on Instagram, I learned quickly what the real issue was. It was not my baking thankfully, but the butter I was using. One thing I love about the home baker community on Instagram, is that everyone is always more than willing to share their knowledgeable and experience.
The best butter to use is European. This generally has a stronger flavor, a higher butter fat content and is cultured butter. All of this helps give a better texture, taste and a more flaky pastry. In the US, most local butters are uncultured and have lower fat content which impacts the final result.
Making Croissants or Danish pastry requires allot of time as I already mentioned. Due to this, I now often make them in advance and freeze a portion since we usually cannot eat them all and they are best eaten on the day baked. If I do this, I take them out of the freezer the night before around 11pm placing them on a prepared baking sheet and then place them In a plastic bag so they can proof and defrost overnight. When I wake up in the morning they are proofed and ready to go into the oven.
So as you have now learned, which I found out the hard way, using good quality European butter is the key to best results. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below, I would love to hear from you.
