My uncle insisted I ditch the stand mixer for laminated dough

He said hand folding builds better layers, and after my third attempt, the croissants from my home oven in Austin finally had that perfect honeycomb texture. Anyone have other old-school techniques that actually work better?

3 comments

3 Comments

mileslane8d ago

Yeah, I'm totally with @gavin_kim on the butter thing. That high fat stuff is a game changer for keeping things cold. I mean, the mixer just works the dough too fast and heats it up, idk. Hand folding is slower but you have way more control. Maybe it's just me but I feel like you can actually feel the layers forming.

alice_allen58d ago

Wait, really? I've always had the opposite experience. My stand mixer with the dough hook gets the butter block incorporated way more evenly for me. Hand folding just warms the dough up too much in my kitchen.

gavin_kim8d agoMost Upvoted

Interesting point about temperature. I wonder if the type of butter makes a difference too. Really cold, high-fat European style butter behaves so differently from regular sticks in my experience. It stays in distinct layers longer, which might explain our different results with the mixer.