A bakery in Paris recently made ‘Crookies’ and they have become quite viral! I decided to give them a go but only if I made the croissants from scratch – these were incredible, but very, very filling! What happens is you basically end up baking a cookie on top of your croissant with a more gooey one in the middle wedging the two halves of the croissant together, truly a treat that needs to be shared.
Making the croissants from scratch is tricky, but fun and definitely worth the wait and the taste – it’s your call. Store bought will save you a lot of time and ingredients, but fresh, yep, worth it. Here’s how to do it anyway….
How to make crookies
To make the croissants start off by mixing the dry ingredients together in a large bowl – the yeast, sugar, flour and salt, mix well and add in the milk and water, it’ll be rough at first but you shouldn’t need any more flour in the mix hopefully. Add in the butter and work it well into the mix, using a stand mixer or dough hook attachment on a mixer will help here massively! Work away until into the dough, flour your surface and knead for 5 minutes, then place the dough into a neat bowl in a clean lightly oiled bowl, covered in cling film. Leave for 90 minutes to 2 hours to rise.
Meanwhile you can bash the butter layer (tourage) onto baking parchment cut into 30cm x 30cm squares. Line the cubes up and whack them with a rolling pin with baking parchment on top to cover the butter. Flatten it to fully cover the 30cm x 30cm area, it should be quite thin and place in the fridge to firm up.
When the dough is risen remove from the oven, lightly flour and roll out into a large rectangle wide enough for the butter disc in the fridge to sit in and be encased. Do just that, put the butter into the dough, lift all four sides fully encasing the butter into the dough, pressing the seams as needed.
Roll it out a little to flatten the seams you’ve made then quarter turn and roll out the dough to form a rectangle again, aim for about 40cmx20 cm. Fold a quarter of dough into the middle and bring in the other side, then fold the whole of it in half. Turn the dough a quarter of the way, roll out the dough. Place in cling film to stop it drying out and place in the fridge for 30mins, this helps the butter stay firm.
After it’s chilled for 30 mins, roll out the dough slightly. Fold in 1/3 of the dough and the other third on top of the first 1/3 you folded so it is a neat 3 tier stack. Turn it 90 degrees again and roll out to form the rectangle 40cmx20cm in size again. Refrigerate it in the fridge in this shape wrapped in cling film leaving plenty of room for it to expand overnight.
The next day remove the dough from the fridge and place on a floured worktop. Make it into a nice long rectangle keeping the width already in place. Cut out triangles (the video shows it best in terms of results) to help determine the croissant size you want, mine were 15cm so pretty big! Half this would still make good sized ones!
With each triangle make a slit at one end in the middle of the dough and stretch it to look a bit like an Eiffel tower! Then roll up from the fat end to the thin point letting it rest on the point / tip. Repeat with all the croissants, again, the video shows this step best if unsure.
Leave the croissants on a lined baking tray in a warm area for at least 2 hours, or if you want boil a kettle, pour this into a pan and place in the oven, don’t turn the oven on, but place the croissants on a tray in there, this delicately steams them and helps them rise, this is a nice method I was told about that worked great!
Once risen, beat the egg yolk together, and brush delicately on the croissants. Bake at 180c/160fan/350F or equivalent for approx. 20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack before eating or slice in half and proceed to make the crookie.
For the cookie dough it’s nice and simple – just cream together the softened butter and sugars, until smooth and consistent in colour, then fold in all of the other ingredients, stirring, folding and scraping really well until well combined. Keep chilled until needed.
keep the oven on from the croissant temperature before if making immediately, splodge some cookie dough inside the halved croissant, put the lid on, then place more of it on top of the croissant in a line along the top, bake for 15 minutes or until the cookie on top is just starting to brown on the edges, the inside will still be a bit gooey, but it is delicious! Enjoy after giving them a few minutes to adjust to room temperature.