Everyone loves these; buttery, sweet, flaky, crisp little parcels of deliciousness. I made them for when my Mum got home from the gym, to make her exercise as redundant as possible.
They're not hard to make, but do require a lot of time and repetition. A good idea is to make the dough and freeze half of it to make them easily at a later date.
1)Combine 500g of strong white flour with a teaspoon of salt and rub in (pick up pieces of butter and rub them with the tips of your fimgers gently together with the flour, lifting them high as you do so) until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in 60g caster sugar and a 7g packet of yeast. Make a well in the centre and pour in 150ml lukewarm milk and 2 beaten eggs.
2)Mix until a dough is formed and knead for about 10 minutes on a floured board until smooth and springy. You will find that it is quite firm.
3)Rise in an oiled bowl covered in cling film for a few hours or overnight in the fridge. Overnight is best for flavour and it firms up so it's easier to roll out.
4)After it's doubled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface (brush off any excess flour afterwards) to roughly a 35cm by 20cm rectangle. Dot bits of 155g of chilled butter over 2/3 of the dough with the clean side closest to you, and fold the clean side over the middle and the top side over the middle. Seal the edges. Roll to the same size again and repeat the butter step with 155g and repeat the folding and seal. Leave it to rest in the fridge for about 15-30 minutes.
5)Repeat step 4 about 4 times, turning the dough 90 degrees each repetition until you can't see the butter and the dough is smooth. At this point I divided the dough in two, froze one half and let the other rest on the fridge for another 15-30 minutes.
6)Divide the dough into 4 and shape as follows: for crescents, roll the dough to a circle and divide into 4. Take each cut and place some filing (see later) on the largest side (don't overfill) and roll it up to a croissant shape. For pinwheels, cut the dough into squares and place a small blob of filling in the middle. Cut into each corner, leaving it connected in the middle and fold alternating corners to get a pinwheel shape. For envelopes, fold opposite corners of a square of dough and place some filling on the fold. Finally, for kites, cut a square of dough and cut an inner square but leave it connected to the outer square. Fold the strips of dough over to the opposite side of the inner square, and fill.
7)I made 2 fillings for these: for cinnamon almond, melt 50g of butter with 50g of brown sugar and stir in about 125g flaked almonds and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. For Black Forest, chop up 50g glace cherries and 50g good dark chocolate finely, and combine with a small amount of honey, until they just come together.
8)Leave to rise on greased baking sheets for about 20 minutes covered with a tea towel.
8)Bake them with a dabble of egg wash on top in a 200 degrees oven for about 9 minutes, keeping an eye on them to ensure they don't burn, until puffy and golden.
10)For a final finish, drizzle an icing made from 125g icing sugar with a few teaspoons of water and drizzle over in lines with a teaspoon over the pastries.
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