---
title: 'Homemade Croissants Recipe'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=l-4hEBgfZxs'
video_id: 'l-4hEBgfZxs'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1693
---

# Homemade Croissants Recipe

> Source: [Homemade Croissants Recipe](https://youtube.com/watch?v=l-4hEBgfZxs)

## Summary



## Transcript

Hey, I'm John Canel and today on Preppy
Kitchen, we're making some buttery,
flaky homemade croissants. So, let's get
started. We're starting off this recipe
with 2/3 of a cup of warmed whole milk.
80 to 90° is great. To the milk, I'm
adding a tablespoon of granulated sugar
to give our yeast some food to eat.
They're going to be hungry. And now,
we're going to add one envelope or 2 and
1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast, not
instant. Give this a stir. And we're
going to set it aside for 5 to 10
minutes or until the yeast is nice and
foamy. These croissant have steps. This
is not in the quick and easy recipe.
This is I want a challenge. I want to
make something and have a sense of
accomplishment. So, I want to tell you
right now, do not use yeast that is bad
for this recipe because it'll be very
sad. It won't turn out nicely. You want
to see a nice foamy head. And if it
doesn't have a nice foamy head, start
over again with a new packet of yeast.
While this rises, I'm going to set that
aside and measure out my flour. For this
recipe, you'll want 4 cups or 480 g of
allpurpose flour. This is one of my most
requested recipes, and I'm so excited to
share it with you. A proper croissant is
a beautiful laminated dough. So, you
have layers of a yeast leavened dough
with butter, butter, butter, dough,
butter dough, butter dough. And we're
going to make these pages. But first, we
have to make our dough. And when you're
doing that, you want to have the correct
amount of flour. So using a scale is
definitely the best practice. If you
don't have one, don't scoop the flour.
Sprinkle it into your measuring cup and
level it off. You don't want to pack it
in. For some contrast, we're adding 2
and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. One, two, and
a half.
And for a kiss of sweetness,
but more importantly some softness to
the dough, I'm going to add the
remaining 3 tablespoon of granulated
sugar. Whenever you add sugar to a
dough, you're going to get a more
delicate texture. It'll become more
cakey, if you will. Our scale is done.
So, grab a whisk
and we're going to mix it up. By the
way, if you like my videos, go ahead and
hit that subscribe button. There's two
new recipes every single week. Once you
make this recipe, you're going to see
that it's actually not that hard to make
a proper laminated dough. And you'll
have a world of pastries open up to you.
There's so many different things you can
do with a lovely laminated dough. Okay,
nice and mixed up. Grab your stand mixer
and we're just waiting to have some
beautiful foamy yeast. We're using milk
and not water here, so the yeast does
have to work a little bit harder and it
needs some more time. My yeast has
bloomed nicely and it's time to add half
a cup of cold water right in.
I'm going to add this right in.
For this recipe, you'll want to use
European butter, not the regular
American style butter. European butter
will be softer, more yellow in color
usually. And the main difference is it's
a higher fat content. So, it's perfect
for this as opposed to the American
style which has a little bit more water
in it. It says four tablespoons or 1/4
cup of very softened European butter.
And I microwaved this because it was a
little too firm at room temperature.
We're going to pop our dough hook on and
mix this up. Low speed for about a
minute or until the dough is shaggy and
coming together.
By the way, you have a choice here. You
can start this recipe in the morning and
finish it in the evening. But this is a
breakfast pastry, so it's more
traditional, I think, to have it broken
up over two days. You start the dough on
one day and then you finish it in the
morning. In addition to the time
management of it all, the overnight rest
time will give the gluten some time to
relax while still keeping the butter
nice and cold. The enemy here is heat.
Cuz if you're making this on a hot
summer day and your air conditioning is
broken, it's basically impossible to
keep the butter cold enough to keep
those pages separated. You want that
nice lamination, which requires a thin,
cold layer of butter.
My dough is baldled up really nicely. I
have some structure developing. And now
we're going to shape it. So, our mixer
is done. Grab a good length of plastic
wrap. Turn the dough onto the plastic
wrap.
Going to pat this into a square shape.
now.
And your dough should be about a/2 inch
thick. So, we're going to wrap this
tightly now and refrigerate it for half
an hour. This will let the dough rest
and relax a bit so it's more easy to
handle. In the meantime, we're going to
make our butter pat. It's the other half
of the croissant. While our dough is
chilling, grab one and a/4 cup of cold
European butter and just let it hang out
on the countertop for about 15 minutes
to warm slightly. If you're not used to
using this butter, it gets softer much
quicker than regular butter. It's the
higher fat content. This part of the
recipe, which is pure butter, is called
the barrage.
Bear is butter in French. I know I have
a horrible accent, so please don't
criticize.
We're going to cut two pieces of
parchment paper into 12x 12 in squares
and repeat.
Once that's done, it's time to cut your
butter. So, we're going to cut
tablespoon sized pieces. And you should
have 20 pieces for 20 tablespoons. If
you're working in a commercial bakery,
this would be fairly automated. You'd
have machines to help you out, but we're
going to do it by hand the oldfashioned
way.
Now, we're going to lay these out into a
4x5 grid right in the center of the
parchment. My tablespoons are not
perfect, but that's totally okay. push
them together. Okay, that's good. For
the next step, you'll want a rolling pin
and probably a bench scraper or a big
knife. Cover your butter up with your
parchment paper and you're going to roll
and pound it into a thin sheet. You'll
have a 10-in square that's about an
eighth of an inch thick.
After you've pounded it a bit, you can
roll. And if you have a rolling pin with
bumpers, that could be very handy for
you. Some of the butter is going to
start coming apart. So periodically you
can lift the parchment paper off and
just kind of scooch it back in place.
If this is looking really lumpy, you can
scrape and smooth the top, but so far
this looks pretty nice. Back on and more
rolling.
You can cheat a little bit if things are
getting kind of out of shape. A lot of
people watch the channel kind of just to
relax, and I get that. It's very It's
very relaxing to watch people do some
work, but they don't have the intention
of making this recipe. If you're
watching this video, let me know in the
comments if you actually plan on making
this or you're just vaguely curious
about the process. Paper back on and
we'll continue.
Okay, we're getting close. This is
actually better to do on a cold
countertop. When you're doing this step,
your butter is going to become softer as
you work it, but it should still be cool
to the touch. If things are warming up,
lift it up and goes right into the
fridge to cool out. Cool down. Your
butter is going to want to make a
circle. So, you might be kind of cutting
and piecing things in to keep that
square shape. The shape is actually
quite important.
As you develop a better technique,
you'll find this becomes easier and
easier. But don't be afraid to just
piece things in here. The only thing
that matters is the end result.
Okay, we're getting so close. So, we
have a 10 by 10ish inch squareish shape.
That looks good to me. I'm going to
cover this back up. And this goes into
the refrigerator for 10 minutes to chill
a bit, but not hardens. So, don't leave
this in for an hour. It's really about
10 minutes just so it kind of gets some
of its strength back. Everything's
rested and chilled. So, now we're going
to lightly flour our surface. And I'm
using a pastry mat today just because it
really helps for things not sticking.
Place it onto your counter. I'm going to
lightly flour the top as well as well as
my rolling pin. And this will get rolled
out into a 10x 20 in rectangle. Once
it's rolled out, it should be about a/4
of an inch thick. You can kind of lift
it up too, which helps corral it back
into shape.
Today we're making a basic butter
croissant. A basic butter croissant. As
you get more comfortable, you can begin
adding fillings and flavorings.
Well, well, well. After just a little
bit of rolling, we have a 20x
10 in rectangle. And I can just pat this
back into a nice rectangular shape. No
rounded corners for us. This looks
great. If you need to sharpen up the
corners, you can brush any flower off
the top. There should be none left over.
and make sure the long side is facing
you. I took my butter out just a couple
minutes ago. And at this point, it's
nice and cool, but it won't crack when I
bend it. So, you can give it a little
test, and if it cracks, leave it on the
countertop for 3 to 5 more minutes. If
not, you are ready for the next step.
We're going to lift it up and flip this
butter side down onto the center of our
dough.
Now, lift your parchment paper off. Now,
you're going to fold the dough over so
it meets in the middle.
If it shrinks back, just pull it out a
little bit. Pinch that center seam
together so it doesn't disconnect. Now,
we're going to be very gentle and
just roll with a rolling pin to make
sure everything's nice and connected.
One more set of pinches. So here we're
going to make sure our butter is fully
sealed in.
You want everything to look kind of
perfect even at this stage. So grab a
bench scraper or a big knife and just
square up the sides, especially on the
pinched edges. Things might have gotten
a bit lumpy. Going to lightly flour the
top. I'm using a pastry mat, so I know
nothing will stick to it. If you're
rolling things out on your countertop,
you should add a little bit more flour,
too. The height is fine. The width needs
to increase, so keep it at 10 in high.
We want 18 in long. Nice even force here
because we don't want really anything to
rip open. And we're being slow because
there's a thick layer of butter that's
not moving as fast as the dough here.
I see there's a little air bubble right
at the edge here. I don't want that to
continue. So, I'm going to pierce it and
just push the air out. Then pinch it
back together.
So, at the moment, I have one layer of
butter, two layers of dough, and
everything is really thick. You want to
have a ton of layers. Think of those
quason that you buy at a nice bakery.
They have all these layers to them. So,
this will only happen by rolling and
folding and rolling and folding and
rolling and folding until you've worked
up those beautiful layers. You'll notice
for this part, I'm using a straight
rolling pin. so important and it's going
to be much easier if your rolling pin is
fairly long. The shorter ones or a
French one which is tapered, which I
love for making pi dough, for example,
is not going to be great for this. So,
find your straightest, longest rolling
pin for the easiest set of rolls. And if
you're looking at this thinking, no, I
don't like this at all. I'm not going to
do this. I understand. And you can click
up here for my how to make rough puff
video, which is kind of like the cheat
version of a laminated dough. It's much
easier and you get a similar effect, but
not the same. Keep rolling out.
A little bit of rolling later and we
have an 18x10 in rectangle. So, we're
ready for the next step. Chances are
that your edges are a little bit lumpy.
And I know for sure that there is a gap
on either edge where the butter is not
but the dough is. So we're going to trim
this up.
If you had any excess flour, just always
brush that off. We never want flour
before we fold cuz that'll prevent
sticking. It's time for our first fold.
So imagine that you're folding a piece
of paper to fit into an envelope. This
should be divided into thirds. And
you're gonna fold this over.
There we go.
This is why a pastry mat comes in so
handy.
Now, you want to grab a baking sheet,
line it with parchment paper, and we're
going to transfer the dough right over.
That's the easiest way for me. Grab a
bench scraper, and we're just going to
neaten the edges up. I want a nice,
beautiful rectangle. Cover this tightly
with plastic wrap. And this goes into
the fridge for half an hour. Every time
you work with this,
the butter starts getting dangerously
soft. So, in between each step, we're
going to pop this into the fridge to
chill out. The gluten in the dough will
rest, the butter will firm up, and our
next step will be easier. This marks the
end of my first turn. There are four
turns in total. Into the fridge you go.
After half an hour of chill time,
lightly flour your surface once again.
And even though I'm using a pastry mat
here, which is not sticky, I want the
dough to roll evenly, meaning it's not
going to be forced apart. It's going to
just spread nicely. Unwrap your dough.
Lightly flour the top as well. What's
important here is to keep the short side
short and the long side long. So, we're
going to roll this back out into a 10
by8in rectangle. Just being sure that
we're not trying to change the
orientation of the shape. And you're
allowed to move things around. Just like
when you're making a pie crust, you want
to keep it moving so you are sure that
nothing's getting stuck. If you see any
air bubbles, you can try and force them
out of the side. And then just check the
dimensions every once in a while. This
recipe is a Virgo's dream.
All right. This looks pretty good. It's
18 by 10. And if you need to, you can
kind of just scooch things around so the
lines are more straight. If the short
ends look really bad, you can give them
a trim. Otherwise, I would just kind of
pat and scooch as needed. You do not
want to cut the long sides because
here's the deal. When this bakes, some
parts have to be sealed. Otherwise,
you'll have leakages of butter that are
unfortunate. Just going to mark off my
thirds. Six. Six. There's any extra
flour on the top, you're going to remove
that just like you did before. Fold it
over. I have some extra flour on the
bottom. So, I'm just going to brush that
off.
And now fold the other edge over.
Giving this the lightest of rolls. And
just a little straighten.
Now we can return this to our parchment
lined pan. Recover it in plastic. If you
have waxed cloth, you could use that as
well, by the way. And we'll refrigerate
another 30 minutes and repeat this all
over again. We're halfway through the
folding. Lightly sprinkle your surface
once again for our third roll. We are
just building up layer after layer here.
Lightly flour the top. Lightly flour
your rolling pin. And another 10 by 18in
rectangle is in our future. And
remember, you can feel free to keep
moving things along.
[Music]
square it up as you move along. And by
the way, you can click up here for my
Paris bakery tour part one. I'll put
links to both in the description box
below. In part two, I examine some of
the best croissant in Paris. And yes,
these are a morning pastry. You would
never try and order a quissant in the
afternoon, otherwise you would be
corrected.
So really what we're doing here is just
building up layer after layer of
laminated dough. And honestly like once
you do this recipe a few times you will
not be at all frightened of it. Actually
even after the first time you'll be like
this is so much easier than I thought it
was. Are there a lot of steps? Yes,
there are a lot of steps.
This is not a quick and easy recipe like
apple muffins. But is it technically
like really difficult? Not really. As
long as you bought the right butter,
your kitchen is a regular temperature,
like not super hot, not icy cold, you
should be fine. 18 by10, we are ready to
fold. Squaring it off. Give it a fold.
Then and
the brush, I don't want any excess flour
here.
And another fold.
[Music]
Just going to give this the lightest of
rolls before I pop it back into the
fridge. I just want to encourage a
better connection through community
building and rolling pins.
Back onto your parchment paper.
Our plastic wrap goes back on top. And
this goes back into the fridge for
another half hour. And our final fold.
So close.
Out of the fridge. Another light dusting
of flour.
Little more flour on top.
And once again, we're rolling into a 10
by 18 in rectangle.
[Music]
If you see any butter kind of starting
to pop out of either of the sides, the
long or the short, use a bench scraper
and just press it back in. That'll
happen because the butter cools down the
fastest on the edge and as you roll,
you're moving a little solid piece of
butter out which could pop out. That's
not good.
[Music]
Okay, just a little bit of rolling
later. I have a 10 by 18 in rectangle
and I can give it a final fold. What's
easy to forget here is that we're using
a yeasted dough. So even though we're so
focused on this being like layers of
butter and dough, this is yeasted and
there will be a rise which will help
give you that puffy lovely texture. Last
brush. Just any excess flour goes away.
Fold it into thirds. Removing excess
flour again. And my last fold. Just
patting this down ever so gently. Wrap
your dough tightly in plastic. And we're
going to refrigerate this overnight or
for up to 18 hours. When we come back,
this will be ready to finish.
It's a new day. My dough's been resting
overnight, and you can see it puffed
considerably. My yeast were working even
though it was cold and dark. You want to
lightly flour your countertop now. And
I'm again using a pastry mat because I
don't want anything to stick. This dough
feels so soft and puffy. Now, we're
going to dump this out without the
plastic onto our countertop. And I'm
also going to dust the top of this.
We're going to start off nice and
gentle. I'm looking for pockets of air.
Like, that's a pocket of air. If you see
a pocket of air, just pierce it.
Good. If you notice any tearing of the
dough, rewrap and let it sit on the
counter top for 5 minutes just to warm
up a bit more. After some initial
pressing, you can now begin rolling
gently. At first, we're going to roll
this out to a 12x 28 in rectangle. So,
it's going to be big. Let's try and keep
it in a rectangular shape.
And if you notice things are sticking,
add a little bit more flour.
At this point in the recipe, you're
really on easy street, but you want to
make sure that nothing goes wrong with
your precious laminated dough you spent
so much time on. If I made fresh
homemade croissants for you, and my
praises were not being sung, I'd be
horrified. I'd be like, "Oh my god, this
took quite a while. I hope you like
them." Your dough should be nice and
pliable and stretchy after resting
overnight, but you will see some
pullback.
My dough is looking pretty nice and
silky. If your dough cracked or tore,
not the best thing. So, what you want to
do is brush lightly with water, pinch it
back. You want to reenccase that butter
with the dough. And then cover with
plastic and let it rest for 5 minutes.
Then keep rolling. We're nearly there.
Never mind. Got some rolling to do. I'm
really worrying about the length as the
height is going to be much easier.
28x 12. We are ready to cut. I'm going
to mark this off in 4 in increments.
Starting at the bottom left on the top
left side, we're going to measure out 2
in. And then from that 2in mark every 4
in, our very fancy pastry crescents are
just triangles of dough that are rolled
up. This is making those triangles. So,
here, grab a knife or a pastry cutter
and we're going to begin cutting.
This is scrap. I'm going to save it cuz
every bit of this recipe needs
cherishing. Now, you're just going to
arrange from that top point to the
bottom 4in mark and make your first
proper
triangle.
Move the ruler and you're going to keep
going. At this point, if your triangles
aren't perfect, but a little bit of
skew, it doesn't matter. Give yourself
some grace. And I would suggest going
from the thick end to the point.
Otherwise, the pastry tends to roll up
on you. If you see anything sticking
together, you can pull the triangle a
little bit just to create some distance.
Something very soothing and methodical
about all these precise cuts.
Grab three rimmed baking sheets.
I also suggest you cover up your
precious dough with paper or plastic
just while you're working so nothing
dries out. We've worked too hard to let
it go to waste now. You don't have to,
but I'm lining my baking sheets with
parchment paper. And now we're going to
begin our construction. You're going to
cut about half an inch from the bottom
of your triangle, the thick part. We
want to create some more width for them.
And we're going to do this by folding
and stretching. So create two little
triangles like that. My dough is pretty
perfect as far as the surface
consistency. If there was any flour
remaining, brush that away before you
begin this. Now we're going to roll this
up and gently
pull apart with our fingers as we roll.
Just roll, roll, roll. Gentle pressure.
And now we can place this onto our
baking sheet. As you continue this
process, you'll get better and better.
Don't worry if the first one doesn't
look perfect. So, we want the tip facing
down.
And then you can gently
maneuver this into a C-shape. These will
be puffing cuz there's yeast here and
it's now at room temperature. So, we're
going to give these a lot of space,
about 6 in in between each one. You'll
be able to fit four to six croissants on
each sheet tray. Give that a cut. Pull
those apart. And you can see the little
layers of lamination here.
And now as we pull from the edge
slightly, we're going to roll this up.
You're going to be gentle. Tip side
down. Just like that. You'll feel more
and more confident as you do each of
these. Don't worry about these looking
as perfect as possible. It's time to
roll these up before the butter melts.
That's what I'll tell you. As you work,
maybe the top is a little bit more dry
than the bottom. So, you can flip these
upside down so they stick a bit better.
Okay, we're almost done. You're going to
have three beautiful trays, but these
need time to rise and they're super
rich. So, your yeast are going to have
to work very hard. Hardworking yeast
need more time.
And just like that, my last quissant.
This is actually a scrap, but I was able
to roll it out. Goes right on here. A
little movement into a C-shape. Lightly
cover these with plastic. We don't want
them to dry out. I'm going to use a
double sheet for each of these baking
trays. We're going to leave these out
for 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours to rise at
about 72° F. It should be like a nice
room temperature rise. Not too hot so
the butter melts. Not too cold so it
takes forever. 2 hours into your rise
time. You're going to preheat your oven
to 425. So it is very hot. But don't
worry, we'll be reducing the temperature
ASAP. First, let's get these risen. Time
has passed. And as promised, one of the
trays is ready. The other ones aren't. I
just want to show you the difference.
These guys puffed. Look at that jiggle.
They're ready to go into the oven. It's
preheated to 425,
but we need to give them an egg wash
really quickly. One egg and a tablespoon
of heavy cream.
Give it a good mix. You want to give
them an egg wash, but you don't want to
seal the cut side. So, carefully and
gently just add a light egg wash onto
the top sides.
These are, sorry, these are so nice and
jiggly and puffed. These ones are still
proofing. So, we're going to give them
more time. You're going to find that of
the three, one tray will be ready first,
which makes it easy since you probably
don't have three ovens at the ready.
I'm trying to be careful right now
because I really have, you know,
invested some time making these quissant
for you and I'd like them to be finished
nicely. So, I'm being very gentle.
Proofed, puffed, jiggly, and eggwashed.
My croissants are ready to pop into the
oven. 425, but the moment you close the
door, reduce to 375. And you'll bake
them for 15 to 20 minutes or until
they're a deep golden brown. If you want
to temp these out, the internal
temperature should be 190. In you go.
And in the meantime, keep an eye on your
next ones and start egg washing once
they're puffed.
Buttery, crisp, and I cannot tell you
how proud I am of these little guys.
They came out just as I hoped they
would. You can see all the layers of
lamination. They rose really well. And
this, by the way, is the one I made out
of the scraps. The rest of them look
even nicer. But enough about that. It's
time for a bite.
These guys are so buttery, flaky, airy,
and light. really a labor of love, a
challenge, a project bake, but anyway
you cut it, they are delicious. I hope
you get a chance to try this technically
challenging recipe and love it. And if
you like my videos, hit that subscribe
button and check out my French pastry