If you think making croissants is a pain in the ass, you don't know the half of it. Note: You HAVE to watch this with the sound on. So crank it up (or put on headphones if you're at the office). [Video appears after the jump.]...
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Illustration by R. O. Blechman from the New York Times Get a quick overview of the origins of the croissant and the bagel in this fun comic from the New York Times by illustrator R. O. Blechman. Related: A Short History of the Bagel...
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The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read all her mission reports here. Crisp, golden, buttery roti prata. Before I knew the gentle, sit-down joys of a warm croissant, I knew the theatrical flips and flying acrobatics of the roti prata. Crisp, golden, with multiple, tissue-thin layers of buttery flakiness, the roti prata is Southeast Asia's street food answer to the West's more gentrified pastries. The prata man flips and twirls elastic, tissue-thin dough. Photograph from Brandon LLW on Flickr Flour, water, and copious amounts of ghee (clarified butter) are formed into a dough, kneaded, allowed to rest overnight, then formed into balls. Each ball of dough is...
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Photograph from foodbeam In her latest post, French blogger Fanny of the sweets and pastry-centric blog foodbeam explains how to make perfect croissants accompanied by photographs that tortuously accentuate every golden, buttery layer. Although I've never thought of seriously making my own croissants considering that the most advanced thing I can bake is a cupcake, Fanny's instructions almost make me believe I have the power to do so. "Making croissant can seem pretty daunting at first," she gently begins, "but once you’ll really pay attention to the different steps, you’ll realise it’s as easy as making pâte feuilletée." Oh yes, it's as easy as that...wait, I've never made pâte feuilletée before. (Of course, Fanny has clearly illustrated instructions for making...
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Multiple choice time! The image you see at right is: a) a pretzel b) a croissant c) breakfast d) a snack e) A, B, and D, but not C f) all of the above A tough one, isn’t it? The City Bakery in New York City is famous for many things, its fudge-thick hot chocolate and beloved chocolate chip cookies among them. But the only baked good to have its own website—really—is the pretzel croissant. A happy oven-fresh love child of Paris and New York, the pretzel croissant is just what it sounds like—croissant dough in pretzel form. Now, if you made a pretzel-to-croissant spectrum, this guy would fall about two-thirds of the way toward the latter end; its pretzel...
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How can you resist a croissant whose "innards are like labyrinths, each encapsulating pockets of deliciousness"? Danny of Food in Mouth enthusiastically praises the butter-loaded croissant from the New York-based café, Petrossian. I can almost smell the butter wafting out of the croissant's golden crust from here....
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Recently in Travel + Leisure Magazine, Linda Dannenberg lists eight of the best boulangeries in Paris according to a specialty: croissants, sourdough loaves, miche, baguettes, pain au raisins, pain au chocolat, croissants aux amandes and fougasse. [via roboppy del.icio.us]...
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