Today (Feb 27, 2008) I finally attempted (whole wheat) croissants. I started with a recipe a friend gave me, and tweaked it a bit to use all whole wheat flour, and honey instead of sugar. They were a tad bit doughy (underdone) when I was through, but otherwise they turned out really well. I wasn’t able to roll them out quite as thin as they were supposed to be rolled out (I ran out of room; next time I will have to roll them out on the dining room table.), and I think that was the problem in their being a little underdone.

These whole grain croissants are surprisingly easy.  There is some rolling involved, so they’re moderately time-consuming — but even that is not nearly as bad as you might think.  It takes a long time, but not a lot of hands-on time, so it’s fairly similar to making regular bread.  (And the hands-on time is not much more than that, really.)

Because croissants are known for their high butter content, I’m going to link this recipe up for the October Fest Carnival of Super Foods at Kitchen Stewardship.

Whole Wheat Croissants

Whole Wheat Croissants

Rachel Ramey

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Course Bread/Breakfast

Ingredients

  

Dough

• 4-1/2 c. freshly-ground whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 Tbsp. instant yeast
• 1-1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 c. honey
• 1-2/3 c. whole milk cold
• 2 Tbsp. butter softened

Butter Square

• 24 Tbsp. butter, kept cold (3 sticks)
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• Egg Wash
• 1 egg beaten

Instructions

 

• Mix all dough ingredients to form a soft dough. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour. Meanwhile, make the butter square. Unwrap three sticks of butter and cut each one into eighths. Sprinkle the flour over top and begin kneading these together to form one relatively smooth ball. Lay out a piece of plastic wrap, plop the butter-flour ball on top, and pat and squish into a 7-inch square. Wrap up well and refrigerate until the dough is ready.
• When dough has chilled, roll it out on a well-floured surface to a an 11-inch square. Put the butter square diagonally on the dough, so you have a butter diamond on a dough square. Fold the corners of the dough in to cover the butter and meet. Pinch the edges together. Roll this out from the center to form a 14-inch square. Fold into thirds to form a long, narrow rectangle. Then fold into thirds again the other direction to form a small square. Each of these "into-thirds" folds is called a turn; you have now turned the dough twice. Wrap and refrigerate again for 2 hours.
• Repeat the rolling and folding again so you have a total of four turns, including the earlier ones. Then roll the dough out into a 20-inch square. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough in half. You should now have two long rectangles. Cut each of these into thirds, then cut each of those thirds diagonally to form two triangles each. Roll each triangle up from the wide end to the narrow end. Place on a parchment-lined, rimmed baking sheet, curving the ends to shape. Brush with the egg wash and allow to rise for 30-40 minutes. (They don't rise much.)
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes.

Variations:

• For chocolate or raspberry croissants, place a scant tablespoon of filling on each croissant before rolling up.

Begin squishing them, and knead the butter and dough together until you have one fairly smooth ball of greasy stuff. Spread out a piece of plastic wrap, plop your butter ball in the middle (a bench scraper works nicely to get the whole mess off of your work surface), and pat and squish to form a 7-inch square. Wrap the plastic wrap around it and refrigerate until you’re ready to use it. (This took me about fifteen minutes, leaving about forty-five minutes for it to chill in the refrigerator before the dough was ready. This was plenty of time for it to firm back up.)

When dough has chilled, place it on a well-floured surface.  Sprinkle the top with flour, and roll into an 11-inch square.  Put the butter square diagonally on top of the dough (so you have a butter diamond on a dough square).

Fold the corners of the dough over the butter so that the sides meet.  Pinch dough together firmly to encase the butter square.

Roll this into a 14-inch square, rolling out from the center and sprinkling it or your rolling surface with flour, if necessary, to prevent sticking.  Fold the square into thirds, so you have a long, narrow rectangle.  Fold it into thirds again the other direction, so you have a small square.  Each of these “into-thirds” folds is called a turn; you have now turned the dough 2 times.  Wrap it and refrigerate it again for 2 hours.

Repeat the rolling and folding so you have a total of 4 turns, including the earlier ones.  Then roll the dough into a 20-inch square. [This is where I didn’t roll it out quite large enough.]  Cut it in half so you have two long rectangles.  Cut each rectangle into thirds.  Cut each third diagonally to form two triangles each.  A pizza cutter makes this really easy.

Roll from the wide end to the narrow, then curve the ends around to get a crescent shape as you place the croissant on a piece of parchment.

When all of them are on the parchment, brush with the egg wash and let rise for 30-40 minutes.  (They don’t rise much.)  [I recommend two baking sheets at this point, as mine were a little cramped after baking.  Also, I highly recommend baking sheets with rims.  Some of the butter melted out of my croissants during baking and ran down to burn on the bottom of the oven, filling my house up with smoke!]

Bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes.

For chocolate or raspberry croissants, you can place a scant tablespoon of filling on each croissant before rolling them up.  We tried a couple of ours with a few chocolate chips, and they were good.  Jam would also work well, I think.  The rest of ours we left plain to use as “rolls.”

This post was previously two posts, originally published 27 Feb 2008 and 29 Oct 2009. They were merged and updated on 17 Feb 2025.