Cranberry Orange Croissants

For my inaugural baking blog post I wanted to make something I had never made before, which I did. The problem with doing this, is it seems that no one has ever made these, which is cool and scary because that means it's unique but also I had no foundation to build off of. Sure there were tons of cranberry crescent rolls or cranberry pockets--but not a real croissant. Some might question the validity of calling these lil babies "croissants" (it's a roller coaster of a recipe OK?), but in the end I'm gonna call them what I want.

At the start of winter break, I was browsing and saw a recipe for strawberry croissants (the strawberry being strawberry butter) and cataloged that for later. Flash forward two weeks after my Christmas baking orders are long done, and I was left with three bags of cranberries. I'm gonna take partial blame for this, as I tend not to think ahead and vastly over counted for how many cranberries I would need to make 7 mini loafs and 40 mini scones. The answer is one and a half bags--barely. I got 4. The other blame is on my dear mother (hi Judy) who scared me into stock piling cranberries when she stopped at Walmart one morning, and then informed me that there was a cranberry shortage and I panicked, as I do. If Walmart is out, everywhere must be running out right? probably wrong.

So armed with excess cranberries (I will apologize now for the amount of recipes being posted with them in it,) I thought back to those strawberry butter croissants and thought "uhhhh duh, I can do that with cranberries most likely?" My dad also has a new found love of cranberries so even he would eat them. (as I'm writing this he just took a bite, nervous tbh.) And that's the convoluted thought process that went into the creation of this little pastry.

Dough with X

Butter with quadrants

Final dough cut into two 

Cranberry Croissants 

Makes 8 large croissants (or 12 smaller ones)

Ingredients

Cranberry Butter

• 1 Cup unsalted butter (softened) 
• 1 Cup cranberries
• 1 tsp orange zest (add more depending on taste)
• 3 Tbsp Honey (to taste, add more or less depending on preference)

Croissant Dough

• 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (one package)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups all purpose flour +more if needed/dusting
• 1 tsp sea salt 
• 1 egg + 1 tsp water, lightly beaten 

For the butter

Add all ingredients to a food processor and blend. Once all is combined, place butter on a piece of freezer wrap in the shape of a square. Freeze for 1 hour, use or store in fridge until ready to use. 

For the dough

Warm up 1/4 cup of the milk on the stove over medium heat, so that it's hot to touch but not scalding (100 F.) Transfer the warmed milk to a bowl of a stand mixer, and add the yeast and stir. Let proof for 5 minutes or until bubbly. 

Add sugar and the rest of the cold milk (3/4 cups) to the yeast mixture and stir. Add 2 cups of the flour and salt. Beat with a dough hook until all combined. Continue to add up to 1 more cups of flour until dough is no longer sticky. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead for 3 minutes. Form into a ball, and make a 1inch deep X in the top of the dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Take out chilled dough and place on lightly floured surface, so that the X is facing you. You should have 4 quadrants, flatten each one out with your hand, and then use rolling pin to continue to roll the dough until each quadrant is about 6 inches long, and 5 inches wide. The middle of the quadrants should still be slightly elevated, but don't worry too much about it. Take your chilled square of cranberry butter and place it in the middle on the elevated part of the dough. At this point feel free to to alter the shape of the butter (I say this because my square was too wide for the dough oops.) Take each streched out quadrant of dough and fold them each so they cover the butter square. You should now have a square-ish shape of dough, like a flat gift box--the present is butter. Take your rolling pin and gently pound (yes I know, just do it) the dough. Roll out the dough so that it is about 16 in by 9 in. The length can and WILL vary, it's no big deal. Fold the dough in thirds, meaning fold in one side to the middle and then fold the other side OVER it. Chill for at least and hour.

Once your dough is chilled, take it out and gently roll it out to about 6 in by 9 in. Honestly, it will vary for everyone, I just try and roll it as far as I can without breaking. Again, fold your dough into thirds. Refrigerate overnight--or for 6 hours. (The next morning I like to pop it in the freezer for an hour but its not necessary.)

This is where we differ from a more traditional croissant. Take your dough out and roll it out a just a couple of inches, these are very forgiving so don't worry if you can't. At this point I like to cut right down the middle of the dough, I find it easier to work with two separate pieces of dough. 

On a floured surface roll out each section at a time, trim to have a clean edged rectangle. Cut 4 triangles out of each section, ending with 8 triangles. Starting at the fat end of the triangle, roll it to the tip. Make sure the tip is under the croissant so that it does not unravel.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Place croissants on two parchment lined baking sheets, four on each. Chill in fridge for 30 minutes. Brush with eggwash (1 egg + 1 tsp water), let proof in warm area for an hour or until doubled. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden. 

xoxo, Madeleine