Croissants - Emoji Inspired!

Considering how unpleasantly hot and humid it is in Toronto today, I was sorely tempted to have an avocado-emoji-inspired post as was suggested in fun in the prompts, but a busy day left me no time to spare to dash to the store to pick one up, so I decided to make croissants, and I decided that I would bake them in my toaster oven so that I didn’t heat up the kitchen too much.

This croissant emoji may be copyrighted, according to Google images.  I make absolutely no claim on it as my own, and if I knew its origin, I would give it.

I know there is a traditional way to make croissants and puff pastry, and my hat goes off to bakers who make puff pastry.  I didn’t have enough time today to undertake such a task, but what I did have in my freezer was a package of vegan puff pastry which I used to make the croissants.

I made two types of croissants today, the traditional crescent-shaped croissant, and the pain au chocolat type which you might find in a fancy bakery.

I have used puff pastry to make many things, among them vegan sausage rolls, Eccles cakes, Cornish pasties, hand pies, pot pies, etc.  As long as you keep the pastry cool it isn’t hard to work with and gives good results.

First things first: Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit

I use a silicone rolling mat to cover my counter when I’m rolling out pastry, and an old wooden rolling pin that I’ve had for about 36 years.  I even put the rolling pin in the dishwasher when I’m finished with it.

It’s always a good idea to sprinkle a little all-purpose flour on the rolling surface and on the rolling pin so that the dough does not stick.  For good measure, I sprinkle a little flour on the puff pastry too.

The puff pastry that I purchased comes in two blocks in the package.  The instructions indicate that the pastry, which must be stored in the freezer, can be thawed overnight in the fridge or for two hours on the counter.  Once it is thawed it must be used and should not be put back in the freezer, for safety’s sake.  Sometimes it makes sense to separate the blocks before you thaw the pastry so that you can be sure to have one block that you can use later.

I used my bench knife to separate the two blocks of puff pastry, and put the second block into a zip-lock bag and put it in the fridge until I was ready to use it.

Working from the centre of the block of puff pastry, I rolled it out to roughly a 9 inch x 12 inch size.  It was not a perfect rectangle by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s ok, because the pastry needs to be trimmed and cut and shaped.

I have found that a really good tool for cutting puff pastry is a pizza cutter - because the blade rolls, it doesn’t drag or snag the pastry and makes for a good, clean cut.

I cut the pastry into rectangles the width of the rolled-out piece of dough and then cut across on the diagonal, length-wise, creating triangles of cut dough.

From there it is a simple matter to roll up the triangles, starting at the wide end, bending them into little crescents, brushing them with a bit of soy milk (or your favourite non-dairy milk) and putting them in the oven for twenty minutes.

They come out of the oven a beautiful golden brown and are delightful with vegan margarine or jam and are wonderful when accompanied by a cup of tea 

The second type of croissant I made today was a pain au chocolat.  I love them and it’s really hard to find vegan ones.  

I just left the oven on at 450

I rolled the pastry out as before, but instead of cutting it into triangles, I cut it into rectangles across the width of the pastry.

I rolled up pieces of semi-sweet chocolate in them, brushed the tops with milk and put them in the oven for 20 minutes.  I used fair trade chocolate. 

When they were cooked I sprinkled a bit of icing sugar on them and drizzled melted chocolate over them.