You all know what snow looks like, right?
Of course you do.*
*And if you don’t, I’m so sorry. It’s beautiful. You should become acquainted with it sometime.
Then again, maybe I’m not sorry. I’m not sure what the acceptable answer is regarding the subject of winter anymore. Some people love it, others hate it. It’s like politics. Don’t bring it up so you don’t have to hear someone else whine about their opinion on it.
Instead of blowing up this post with pictures of what the snow looked like in my neck of the woods, I’m going to spare you. I’m going to show you what you really want to see: How Lance and I maintained our sanity, and didn’t kill each other, during the course of Jonas’ fury.
When we heard of the frosty doom headed our way, we decided to have a special cook-together session. Actually it went something like this:
Lance: So, I picked a dessert for us to cook together during the storm. You get to pick the meal.
Me: Great.* What did you pick?
*Great actually meaning not great.
Lance: Croissants. *Devious grin*
Me: Oh my gosh, you know how difficult they are!
Lance: I know, that’s why I picked them. What better time to make them?
Me: *No comment*
Lance: So…dinner?
Today’s post will not be able the nontraditional dinners we had while stuck indoors. I’m going to make you wait until my next post for that. Today is all about the croissants.
I read a magazine article a while back about creating the perfect croissant. I’m not sure what terrified me more about the process: the fact that an entire layer of butter is rolled out then surrounded by layers of dough, or the fact that there are layers of dough involved.
We started the croissants at noon on Saturday. The snow was coming down heavily at that time and had been since around 7 pm the previous night. Yet, this was only the beginning of our confinement. We were happy. We were excited. We were ready for anything.
We made the dough and met our first road block. The dough, which takes all of ten minutes to make, needed to be refrigerated overnight. Since it was morning, we set our timer for eight hours and focused our attention elsewhere.
About an hour before the dough was ready, we made the butter layer.
A layer of butter is beauty and insanity all twisted up together.* It is also a lot easier to work with than one would imagine.
*Actually, I should say all rolled together into a flat square shape.
When our dough was ready, we rolled it into a square…
…and then placed the butter inside it and wrapped it up like a present with the surrounding dough.*
*This step is not pictured because it was a two-man job, meaning I had to do more than stand around snapping pictures and offering moral support.
The square of butter and dough is the rolled out into a long rectangle…
…then folded and refrigerated for twenty minutes.
It is then rolled into the same size rectangle again, folded and placed back into the fridge for another twenty minutes.
Then rolled a third time and placed in the fridge overnight.*
*It was around 10 pm at this point.
In the morning, the dough is pressed with the rolling pin to ‘wake it up’, then rolled into a rectangle practically double the size of the ones created the day before.
Up until this point, the biggest difficulty was the amount of muscle needed for all the dough rolling and the amount of time stretched between each different step.
The execution of cutting the dough into triangles was a rather complex one that is not pictured because it was one of those moments when a woman should know to walk away and let her husband handle something on his own because she knows that her involvement will set either herself or her husband over the edge.
But then, magically, this happened:
And after twenty minutes in the oven, this happened:
Wanting to mix it up a little, we also made a few chocolate croissants…
…and instantly regretted not making more.
Lance has been challenging my baking skills lately, as he feels it is an avenue I should further pursue. After this experience, I’m grateful for the shove to try something that once intimidated me. Once our croissants have disappeared, I am going to work up the nerve to make them completely on my own.
Wish me, and my arm muscles, luck.
If you are insane like us and want to attempt homemade croissants,
here is the recipe we used:
Yum!