My wife was making an appetizer for a party that called for a can of pre-made “crescent rolls” from the refrigerator section of the grocery store. I thought, “Surely I can make something at least as good as that.” I overshot by a bit. I accidentally made something so much better than those blue cans that I couldn’t believe it.
Now admittedly, you can’t slice these like a roll and make a breakfast sandwich out of them. The texture is way too flaky for that. But warm with a little butter, alongside some crisp bacon and cool fruit salad … oh man, this is some good stuff.
Check out my previous post for how to make puff pastry. Once you’re at the end of that process, you’re ready to cut and roll the croissants.
When we left the pastry, I had just rolled it out into a square and cut it into quarters.
Three more cuts with the the pizza cutter and we’ve got eight triangles.
Roll each one from the base to the point …
… then place them with the tip on the bottom on a baking sheet.
Bend the ends of the roll in toward each other.
At this point you could leave the rolls somewhere warm for an hour to rise. You could also brush them with an egg wash to get a nice shiny golden surface. But I’m exceptionally lazy on Sunday mornings. They just went straight into the oven at 375° for 15 minutes.
And that’s it.
Tomorrow, finally, I’ll have the appetizer that started this whole pastry experiment. Once you’ve got the pastry, it’s a really simple thing to make. As you can see, I found a way to make it more involved.
UPDATE: Here it is, the dill cheese appetizer.
Ingredients
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon butter (first amount)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 package dry yeast (2½ teaspoons)
- ¼ cup warm water (105° - 115°)
- 2½ cups flour
- 1 cup butter (two sticks, second amount)
Instructions
Combine the milk, first measure of butter, sugar and salt in a pan. Bring to a boil, remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Dissolve yeast in warm water and add it to milk. Mix flour and the milk mixture together on low speed. Set dough aside in a covered bowl in a warm place to rise until doubled in volume.
Turn out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle. Soften remaining butter and spread onto dough, leaving one third dry. Fold into thirds, dry side first. Chill until almost frozen. Roll out and fold in thirds again. Repeat at least two more times.
Roll out last time, and cut into squares, then the squares into triangles. Roll the long edge toward the opposite point, and fold the corners inward. Allow to rise until doubled, then bake at 375° for 15 minutes.
