Pro tip: cold butter tricks for laminated dough that just clicked for me

I kept getting flat croissants for weeks in my home kitchen near Denver, so I tried grating frozen butter straight into the flour instead of cutting it. That one switch made the lamination layers actually puff up in the oven, and the texture finally looked like a bakery's. Has anyone else tried grating butter, or do you stick with the classic block method?

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jamiew5317d ago

That grated butter trick is a game changer for sure, but it works even better if you chill the flour and bowl first. Toss the whole setup in the freezer for like 15 minutes before you grate, and the butter stays in those tiny shards instead of melting into the dough. Then, when you do the first fold, give the dough a quick 10 minute chill between each turn. That extra step kept my layers from fusing together, and the rise was way more even. Denver's altitude makes everything dry out fast, so I also started spritzing the dough with cold water before folding, it keeps the edges from cracking. Between that and the frozen grating, I finally got those honeycomb holes in the crumb.