Detrempe:

• 500g all purpose flour (not bread flour!)
• 75g sugar
• 10g salt
• 225g active starter
• 300ml warm milk

Beurrage:

• 285g butter (room temp to start)

The recipe is timed to eat Sunday morning, but can be adjusted to Saturday morning by starting Thursday evening.

Friday morning (For Sunday morning croissant)

Feed starter to make 225g active starter by noon or so.

Friday at noon

Mix ingredients for detrempe in stand mixer for 4-5min. Just so it barely stays together (less gluten -> easier to roll).

Let it rise at warm temperature, ~4 hours (or whatever to double or more in size, could be 6-8 hours). Do a few stretch and folds at the beginning.

Use plastic wrap and an 8″x8″ cooking pan to make a flat square of butter (beurrage). It takes longer than you think.

Place detrempe and butter in fridge overnight.

Saturday morning:

Let the butter warm for 30min. Make sure the butter and dough have about the same consistency.

Roll dough out to a square 16 x 16 (double the butter). Place butter on the dough (rotated by 90 degrees) and fold the dough flaps over, like an envelope. Seal them well, pressing together. You now have an 8 x 8 dough with butter.

Roll the dough out to a rectangle, length 3 times the width (8 x 24). Fold one third over the middle, then the other third over that. (1st turn)

Let dough rest ~ 30min at room temperature (not too warm that butter melts, not too cold that butter shatters when rolled – should feel cool, not cold or warm). Refrigerate as needed. Can also let rest much longer than 30min (e.g. 8 hours, then leave it mostly in the fridge to ferment, take out ~30min before rolling so that butter warms up, but not too much). The dough should still spend some time (an hour here and there) out of the fridge to rise a bit if needed (it should puff up a little between folds).

Do a second turn, perpendicular to the first. Rest another30min (or more). Then do the third turn, perpendicular. Rest another 30 min or more , except if putting in the fridge over night.

A few options depending on the timing:

1. Refrigerate dough overnight. Get up early, roll croissants, proof for 2-4+ hours, put in oven.
2. Roll croissants, proof overnight on counter (covered with plastic). This till required a ~2 hour proof in the oven on proof setting in the morning.

Freeze the croissants after rolling them. Then, thaw/proof overnight on counter and a few more hours at warmer temperature if needed.

Should use water or egg wash during proofing to keep surface soft. You can’t easily move the croissants after proofing, so proof them on whatever is going in the oven!

Proofing should make the croissants puffy, jiggly, at least two times larger (but ideally more, see pics). Time will depend on starter and temperature. Can do the proofing in a warmed up oven (then, it’s closer to the 2hr mark).

Sunday morning:

Proof (if needed, with egg wash if just before baking)

Egg-wash (egg + milk).

15-20min at 400F (I lowered it to 380 after 12min, and baked for 18min total, but it will depend on the size of the croissants). They are cooked when they are a nice deep golden brown! Maybe earlier!

To fashion croissants, divide dough in 2. Roll out dough to ~3-5mm, in a rectangle of height ~25cm. Make isoceles triangles with base 10cm. Roll into croissants. Use scraps! Should make of order 10 croissants for each half of the dough (so 20 total, but freeze half, 10 is a lot).

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• 300g flour
• 25g sugar (2 Tbsp)
• 2g salt (1/2 tsp)
• 200g starter (refreshed, 100% hydration)
• 250g water or milk
• 110g butter, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup pearl sugar (~150g?)

Makes about 12 waffles (rectangle ones).

Mix all ingredients except pearl sugar, let rise over night, in fridge if already had some time to rise at room temp (e.g. 4 hours at room temp, then spend the night in fridge).

Mix in pearl sugar just before using (so that it doesn’t dissolve).

Plop some batter onto waffle maker and cook until golden (400F for 8min a la Marceline). It can make a mess because, well, caramel.

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• 500g de Gruyère râpé
• 30g farine
• 30g vin blanc (un peu de kirsch avec si on veut)
• 2 oeufs
• Poivre, noix de muscade (si on veut)
• pain (p. ex. pain de mie)

Bien mélanger les ingrédients pour la pate (râper le Gruyère en assez petits morceaux), et laisser reposer 30min au frigo.

Faire des petites boules/domes et mettre sur les tranches de pain. On peut mettre un peu de moutarde sur le pain.

Frire dans l’huile a 180C/350F (#4 à la Marceline), 3.5min côté fromage en-bàs, puis 1.5min côté pain en-bàs (5min total). Il faut que ce soit encore un peu fondant au milieu!

Essorer sur du papier linge, et manger tout de suite avec des choses aigres (salades, cornichons, etc)!

Ça m’a pris 500ml d’huile, et ça sent bien la friture dans la maison après!

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• Mushrooms
• Butter (60g or so)
• 1 big onion
• 2/3 cup sour cream
• (1kg beef, tenderloin in strips ideally)
• 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 2 cups veg/beef/chicken broth
• 1/4 cup flour

If doing with beef, heat non-non-stick pan (a sticky pan!) to quite hot with some oil. Fry half of the beef 30s on one side (without stirring), then flip, 30s, then remove. It will likely still have some pink uncooked parts. Reserve the beef and fry the other half. This makes a “fond” (obviously) that makes the sauce better, but it’s good without beef too!

Melt butter, fry onion for 1min, then add mushrooms, fry on medium high until mushrooms start to brown/golden (~10min). Sprinkle flour over the mushrooms and onions, fry for another few minutes.

Pour in 1 cup of broth while stirring well, then the other cup. Add the sour cream and mustard and dissolve them. Simmer just below boiling for a bit (it thickens somewhat, but not much, which is ok).

If using beef, add the beef back in, cook for another minute (or whatever so that beef is reheated but not gross and overcooked!).

Super good with barley – cook (rinsed) pearl barley (1 barley / 3 broth, by vol) covered for 40min. Add butter and stir in the stroganoff to make a risotto-like deliciouness. It takes about the same amount of time to cook the barley on the side….

Making a simple starter

Use a large mason jar, something that has a wide opening but that is easy to cover. The first few days you make the culture bigger by adding flour and water, then you do the regular “feedings”.

Day 1: In the morning, mix 100g flour + 100g water with a fork until well blended. Use warm water. Leave the jar loosely covered at room temperature, ideally somewhere warm. In the evening, give it a good stir with the fork.

Day 2: You might already see some bubbles. In the morning, add 50g flour + 50g water, blend well with a fork. In the evening, give it a good stir with the fork.

Day 3: You probably see lots of bubbles and it smells sour. Add 50g flour + 50g water. Blend well.

Day 4: Either it’s really bubbly and smells sour or it’s not, either way, it’s getting a bit big to just keep adding. So now, you switch to “regular feedings”, with a ratio of 1:1:1 by weight of starter, flour, water.

Pour out all of the starter, and poor back into the jar 100g of the starter. Add 100g flour and 100g of water, and blend well with a fork. Leave loosely covered somewhere warm.

Repeat this every day until the yeast comes alive (discard all but 100g of starter, and then add 100g flour and 100g water).

Obviously, if you weigh the empty jar, you don’t always need to pour out all the starter to weigh it again. However, there is a significant amount of evaporation, so you do need to weigh the contents once in a while.

Since you do this every day, it’s a lot of wasted flour from all the starter that you have to discard. Instead of discarding it, you can fry the starter in a hot greasy non-stick frying pan, with some salt, and toppings (green onions, cheese, etc), and make a flat bread!

Most of the sour smell and bubbles, I think, are from bacteria. Eventually, the yeast starts growing too. At some point (depending on your local conditions, but it will happen!), once you do the feeding, the starter will more than double in volume within 4-12 hour of the feed, and then slowly come back down. It’s unmistakable, and be ready for it to spill out of the jar (that’s why you don’t seal the lid, or it would break the jar). This means the yeast it’s doing it’s thing! It took 2 and half weeks for me, and it can take up to a month.

Eventually, you will know how long it takes for your starter to peak after a feed. This will allow you to time the feeding so that the starter is ready at whatever time you need it to make dough. The starter is ready to be used in dough if it floats (take a sample and put in water).

Now that you’ve blown through a substantial amount of flour to get this thing started, you can feed it less often if you keep it in the fridge. In the fridge, only feed it once a week. Feed it, and after 2-3 hours place it in the fridge (this gives it enough time to invigorate).

If you need to use it, you should let it warm up the night before you feed it. It all depends on how active it is. As long as it floats, it should work in dough.

• 2 cups tomato puree/sauce (cook ~6 tomatoes and puree)
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup of sweet (molasses, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, a combination)
• 1/2 tsp of each spice (salt, smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper)

Bring everything to a boil, keep boiling for 1min, then simmer for 20min. Place in mason jar to cool, seal lid when cool and place in fridge. Should keep for long, several weeks once open.

For making in a pizza oven (at high temp, no olive oil!)

Makes 5/3 pizzas (250g dough balls)

• 225g/135g ripe starter
• 600g/360g 00 flour
• 25g/15g salt
• 400g/240g water

Mix the ingredients, let sit ~20min. Two stretch and folds (or 10min in stand mixer worked well, even with such wet dough) and let rise until doubled (usual 4-5 hours). Divide dough into 250g portions and roll them into balls with no seams. Place on a tray, covered with plastic, in the fridge for at least 24 hours (seems ok after 3 days, 5 should be fine).

Remove from fridge at least 2 hours before using. Use lots of flour when rolling, and not not too much pizza sauce (~4-5 tbsp max), and not too much toppings (unless you just want to launch the toppings into the oven). Cooking at 400+C (not F) on the stone takes about 90 seconds..

For making in the oven (with olive oil in dough)

Makes enough for one thin crust large square pizza., or two thin crust personal pizzas (30cm, 300g each). Need to prepare the dough with ripe starter at least 24 hours before using.

Ratios are all based on starter: 1-2-3 starter-water-flour. To make 4 pizza doughs:

250g ripe starter

400g warm water

• 600g flour
• 50g olive oil
• 25g salt (1.5 tsp)

Combine all ingredients until uniform with a fork. Let rest 20 min, stretch and fold, rest 20min, stretch and fold. Cover, proof 3-5 hours at room temperature. It won’t quite double, but should have some small bubbles. Stretch and fold to make dough ball (or more if making more pizzas, 300g per pizza). Delicately remove from bowl, coat in oil, wrap in plastic, and store in fridge at least 24 hours (develops more flavour over time, max 1 week or so).

Remove dough from fridge just before using, stretch dough out on floured surface, it can be made very thin. Add as little flour as possible (ideally none), as it has a nice crispier texture without added flour. I usually drop the dough onto parchment paper with very little flour, sprinkle just enough flour on top so my fingers don’t stick, and then flatten it out.

Cook in hot oven, on pre-heated surface, ideally on pizza stone. Worked well at 475F convection for 20min, preheat the cooking surface, ideally a pizza stone.