Homemade French Croissants

Homemade French Croissants - recipe @ ibaketoday.com

I've got this recipe for a long time and I've used it millions of times. Every time I bake these croissants they look, smell and taste the same. It's a pleasure to make these shiny buns - when the final product is always what you were expecting and hoping for. My family is crazy about them, especially for the various stuffing I come up with..."what's in them?" - Oh, question asked every time..but, with a reason! Someone likes them sweet but the others crave for the salty-cheesy ones. My mom likes them plain and crusty and I must say everybody likes them different, so I always make a questionnaire to see the path I should take :-)

Ingredients for the dough

1 cup of warm milk, 1 cup of warm water, 1 tbsp of yeast, 5 tbsp of sugar, 2 tsp of salt, 1 cup of sunflower oil, 5 cups of flour

Method

Pour the milk into the bowl, add yeast, sugar and a cup of flour and stir it well. Leave it to rest for 10 minutes in order to get it bubbly. Slowly add salt, more flour and the water while you knead it. Sometimes you have to put more flour, but sometimes is too much - really depends on sort of flour. Pour the oil in and knead it for a few minutes more.

When you make the dough to be soft and not sticky, cut it in 8 pieces and leave the dough balls to rest for 10 minutes. While you wait, prepare 1 cup of soft butter.

Roll out the balls one by one in the circled shapes and cream them with butter. Assemble the circles on each other by four, so you'll get two 4-layered circles.

Each circle roll out to be thinner and cut with a knife in 16 triangle pieces. So you will get 32 croissants.

Every little rectangle cream with cottage cheese, or put something on it you like the most and roll it in to make a roll bun.

Homemade Plum jam is one of my favorite stuffing but be aware not to put too much of it because it might pour out of the croissant and to burn.

When they look so good even before baking, that is a sign that you haven't done anything wrong :-)

Cream every croissant with an egg yolk and sprinkle it with salt or sugar - depends of stuffing and your mood. Leave them to rest for an hour before baking them in the oven on 400 F degrees until they get the color you like the most.

When I get them out from the oven, they look and smell so irresistible and appetizing!