Lamination as stress journey

Today was the day. Armed with every admonition from bakers of viennoiserie past, today was croissant day. The teacher from the PM class even came in to put the fear of God into us and prepare us for the intense self-loathing and almost inevitable premature career failure that would come from taking croissants lightly. And then she talked about our first test as well, in the same aggressive tone, just to scare us. And I was scared. I eyed my croissant dough, where it lay in the corner, resting as if it owned the place, with contempt. I held my fragile butter block tensely between my fingers, just so it knew the real gravity of having its life in the hands of a hesitant but equally stubborn new baker. And then I stopped the internal monologue and began.

And a few hours later, not too bad! Glazed with some friendly apricot glaze and stuffed with everything from vanilla pastry cream or almond paste, and garnished with juicy cherries. There are some cheese and plain ones among them as well, you know, to represent the savoury fans in my house. Really the fans in my house are first and foremost butter fans and thus any filling is acceptable  post-butter inclusion.

I cut my dough panels slightly smaller than I intended so my croissants came out slightly miniature. But their bite-size so that mean you can eat (or MOW depending on your propriety) as many as you want without feeling guilty. As my Grandmother Porcheron would say, "There's no calories in that." Self-delusion, it's a family trait.

I don't know what is up with my horribly out of focus pictures today. I will rectify that. I was probably just shaking from the fire and brimstone croissant prep talk I got all day long. But LOOK AT THOSE LAYERS!! No bready croissants for me. Those bitches are made pro-per-ly. They pull apart perfectly with a little pocket of vanilla cream waiting inside.

So basically, Today and I are totally buds right now. This is not a, "Dear Today, go screw yourself" kind of day. That was last Thursday. Last Thursday, you can still go screw yourself.

Tomorrow is stollen! And we start muffins! Slippery slope. Not going to lie, in high school I was totally in a group on Facebook called "I Love Muffins". It's been a problem in the past.

Grab a croissant. Pull the ends like a  party cracker. Watch how it spirals. Eat in one bite. Repeat. I'm going to.