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Recipes, cooking lessons, tips, tricks, food blog, and more.
Recipes, cooking lessons, tips, tricks, food blog, and more.
18 October 2009
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Loading ...My local French baker closed shop for a month, while renovating and taking his young daughter for a visit to France. I purchased some of his frozen croissants to tie me over while he was gone. I baked a half dozen this morning and it was just fantastic.
Lounge table setup with croissants for breakfast.
It all started last night, actually. Before going to bed, I put some baking paper on a baking tray, and put the frozen croissants on it. I sprayed a bit of oil through a mister on top of the croissants, and covered with film wrap. I put those in the oven to proof overnight. It was a cool night, so I knew that they were not going to over-proof. This reminded me of my first job, working at Le Bilboquet, an artisan ice cream shop in Outremont, Quebec. I was 15, and I cleaned the store at night after they closed. One of the jobs involved putting out the frozen pastry out to proof for the morning team. Fond memories, those.
Anyway, this morning, as soon as I got up, I took the croissants out of the oven, and turned the oven on. I could smell the slight yeasty odour coming from the perfectly proofed croissants. A few minutes later, with the oven ready, I took the film off the croissants, and put them in the oven. About 20 minutes baking, and the wee critters were nice and golden brown, ready to take out of the oven. I let them sit for an hour or so.
Finally, we sat down to eat. A bit of butter, a bit of 3-berries jam. Orange juice and coffee. The dogs were at our feet, the gas heater on. Somehow, it became easy to forget the wind and the rain outside.
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Wonderful! Well written, inspiring and oh man I want one! (drooling sniff sniff danger -oh oh)
MAkes me want to hop over to the Bilboquet... which I will do presently :)
Comment by: Phaedra - December 14th, 2009 @ 6:37
Ahhh, Phaedra, we should all be so lucky! Only a few thousand kilometers to hop over to the Bilboquet for me. Missing it! Have a sorbet framboises for me, will ya? :)
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I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add to it. Steven Wright
Wonderful! Well written, inspiring and oh man I want one! (drooling sniff sniff danger -oh oh)
Comment by: Mirjam - December 9th, 2009 @ 12:27
MAkes me want to hop over to the Bilboquet... which I will do presently :)
Comment by: Phaedra - December 14th, 2009 @ 6:37
Ahhh, Phaedra, we should all be so lucky! Only a few thousand kilometers to hop over to the Bilboquet for me. Missing it! Have a sorbet framboises for me, will ya? :)
Comment by: Nic - December 14th, 2009 @ 10:24