Lemon Drizzle Croissants
I love lemon drizzle cake and I love croissants, so after making a batch of lemon curd, I thought I would merge the two. To make this recipe you either need some of the lemon curd recipe I've made, or a jar of shop bought lemon curd will do.
Ingredients
- **Croissant Dough**
- 250 g Strong white bread flour
- 30 g Granulated sugar
- 5 g Powdered milk
- 6 g Salt
- 50 g Unsalted butter softened
- 12 g Fresh yeast or 1 1/4 tsp of fast action dried yeast
- 115 ml Cold water
- 125 g Chilled butter
- 1 whole egg
- **************************
- **Filling and Decoration**
- Lemon Curd
- 50 g Granulated Sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Juice of 1 lemon
Instructions
- Place the flour, sugar, powdered milk, salt and softened butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Crumble in the yeast, making sure it does not touch the salt.
- Knead at medium speed, gradually pouring in the water, until smooth, about 6 minutes. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl.
- On a lightly floured work surface, flatten the dough into a rectangle. Cover with cling film and chill until firm, at least 2 hours.
- Ten minutes before you begin working again, place the 125g of chilled butter in the freezer.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled dough into a rectangle 6mm thick.
- Dust the chilled butter with flour. Roll out the butter into a rectangle half the size of the dough. If the butter is soft, roll it out on a sheet of parchment paper that has been lightly dusted with flour.
- Arrange the dough with a short side facing you. Place the butter on the bottom half of the dough.
- Fold the top half of the dough over the butter to enclose it completely.
- Rotate the dough clockwise 90 degrees, so that an open edge is facing you. Roll out the dough lengthwise into a rectangle 6mm thick.
- Fold up the bottom third of the dough so it covers one third of the dough.
- Fold down the top third to meet the edge.
- Fold the entire dough in half to make a double turn. Press down lightly so it is smooth and even.
- This makes 4 layers of dough.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
- On a lightly floured surface, arrange the dough with an open side facing you and the closed side on the right.
- Roll out again into a rectangle 6mm thick.
- Fold the dough in thirds, like a letter. There are now 3 layers of dough.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
- Arrange the dough on the floured work surface with an open edge facing you. Roll out the dough into a 25cm square 3-4mm thick.
- Cut the dough in half to make 2 large rectangles.
- Using a sharp knife cut the rectangles into isosceles triangles with 6cm bases.
- Place a small teaspoon of lemon curd on the widest part of each croissant.
- Take the two corners, wrap them around the filling to encase it and gently roll the croissants up so that the filing is completely enclosed and the tip is tucked under.
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Arrange the croissants on the prepared baking sheets, spacing well apart, with the tips of the triangles tucked underneath so they do not unroll during baking.
- Let rise in a warm place, not hotter than 30 degrees, until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 180-190 degrees.
- Lightly beat the whole egg in a cup with a fork.
- Lightly brush the puffy croissants with the egg glaze.
- Bake for 15 minutes, rotating the trays half-way through. Bake until golden.
- Meanwhile zest the lemon and mix the zest with 25g of the sugar.
- In a small saucepan mix the lemon juice with the remaining 25g of sugar, until dissolved.
- When the croissants are removed from the oven sprinkle them with the lemon zest and drizzle the lemon syrup over the top of the hot croissants.
- Leave to cool.