Croissants

It seemed like every time my mom was pregnant, she picked up a new hobby to keep her distracted until the baby came. When she was pregnant with one of my brothers, she even learned to play the drums (and she's pretty good!).
Maybe it's because I've been watching a lot of The Great British Bake Show, or maybe it's because I came across two AMAZING baking books at the library (Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours by Sarabeth Levine &The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum), but I've been baking A LOT this summer. Brownies, breads, galette, muffins, cookies, cinnamon rolls- I've got the time, and baking is one of the few things I have energy for!
Lately though, I've been wanting to push myself, to try something new- something technical. What is it about whipping egg whites or folding butter into dough that's so intimidating anyway?

I somewhat successfully tried out a rough puff recipe earlier this summer, but this week, with Sarabeth's step-by-step instructions coupled with all of the available episodes of Great British Bake Show, I felt ready to conquer a fully laminated croissant dough. They turned out beautiful AND delicious- I've never been more proud of any feat I've endeavored in the kitchen!

I only used half of the dough for the croissants, so I channeled my inner "Star Baker" and decided to create something of my own. Introducing the Croicinnassant! (The name needs some work).

I added a generous amount of cinnamon and sugar to the laminated dough, rolling and cutting it exactly how I would with cinnamon rolls, but then I made two cuts in each roll, almost all the way through, and spread them out to showcase the light, flaky swirls. Once again, delicious. But how can you go wrong with so much cinnamon, sugar, and butter???

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Looking for more inspiration? I love following Sarah Kieffer of The Vanilla Bean Blog and Katie Wood of Wood & Spoon. Here are two of our recent favorites!

A post shared by sarah kieffer (@sarah_kieffer) on Mar 13, 2016 at 2:16pm PDT

A post shared by Kate Wood || Wood & Spoon Blog (@katie_clova) on Aug 24, 2017 at 8:45am PDT