French croissants

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In this famous and highly technical recipe from a piece of yeast-based flaky dough we are going to cut and shape ("roll") croissants.
June 26^th 2019618 K 24.4 2 hours 35 min.

Chocolate rolls (petits pains)

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Here is a recipe for "real" chocolate petits pains, i.e. with a milk bread dough (not croissants dough) and with a stick of chocolate inside.
October 30^th 2021434 K4.6 5 hours 30 min.

Kouign-amann brioche

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This is unusual brioche is halfway to being a Breton Kouign-amann. The difference is in the treatment of the dough, which is layered with sugar and butter. The basic dough is rolled out with butter in stages, like for croissants, but with 2 "turns" of sugar for one of butter (granulated and vanilla...
December 30^th 201960 K4.3 15 hours 55 min.

Yeast-based flaky dough (for croissants)

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This yeast-based flaky dough (or croissant dough) is where puff pastry meets a yeast dough (such as brioche dough). This means that not only will we get flaky layers, but the dough will also swell and rise. The method is along the same lines as for a feuilletage: the basic dough is first kneaded,...
June 9^th 2019148 K 4 3 hours 60 min.

Pistachio and goji pinwheels

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Inspired by the traditional French "pain aux raisins" (like Danish pastries), here is a colourful and flavoursome version filled with pistachio cream and goji berries.
October 10^th 202125 K 2 hours 20 min.

Raisin breads (pains aux raisins)

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Raisin breads (pains aux raisins) are one of the three viennoiseries found in all good French bakeries, along with croissants and pains au chocolat. It is a delicate roll of yeast-based flaky dough (the dough of croissants) filled with custard and raisins.
November 27^th 202223 K 2 hours 45 min.

Mirlitons of Guipavas

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You may already be familiar with mirlitons, a delicious little bakery pastry made from puff pastry and almond cream, but here are the mirlitons from Guipavas, which are even more delicious because they're made from croissant dough.
June 25^th 202313 K 1 hour 15 min.

Croissant dough apples

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Thick slices of apples, rolled in sugar and surrounded by a strip of crescent dough, which, after a spell in the oven, become delicious puff pastry apples.
January 21^th 202411 K 1 hour 50 min.

Baker's apple soles

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You may already be familiar with apple semelles, but here's a gourmet baker's version where the puff pastry is replaced by puff pastry (croissant dough), which is baked upside down.
April 28^th 20249,907 1 hour 10 min.

Boulangère tart tatin with vine nectarines

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You may already be familiar with the famous apple tarte tatin, but here's a very tasty bakery version, with vine nectarines and croissant dough.
September 18^th 20246,076 1 hour 30 min.

Brioche feuilletée (flaky brioche)

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For brioche feuilletée (or flaky brioche), the brioche dough is treated like puff pastry, with layers of butter incorporated by repeated turning and rolling. Coarse sugar crystals add a sweet crunchiness. Needless to say, this is very rich and quite irresistible.
November 10^th 2013121 K 24.6 3 hours 50 min.

Flaky chocolate brioche

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This is a rather special brioche: the dough is first layered with butter to make it flaky, then this is rolled around a chocolate filling. The recipe is quite long, but you will be astonished at the result. It is both light (in flaky layers) and rich (with its chocolate filling). As you can see...
November 6^th 202081 K4.5 16 hours 15 min.

Bacon rolls

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These tasty little rolls are enriched with bacon bits and toasted sesame seeds. The slightly flaky texture comes from lard, folded in like for puff pastry. Served sliced, these make an ideal savoury snack to share with friends over a drink.
October 24^th 201762 K4.6 3 hours 40 min.

Bread oven

Building a bread oven was until a few years ago a job for the professionals. But now you can buy a kind of kit which allows you to build your own bred oven without professional masonry know-how. You should know that the kits only provide the main part of oven, the hearth, where you light the fire...
October 15^th 20241.17 M3.6

The amateur baker

You may have noticed over the pages of this site, I am passionate about everything that is related to the bakery: I love making bread, pastries, maintain my leaven, etc.. This page contains links to all the different parts of the site where we talk about bread: recipes, special pages, etc.
October 15^th 2024171 K 44.1

Flours

At the most basic level, wheat grain is put through a mill, which produces a white-ish powder flour... Well, actually it's not quite that simple. First of all we need to distinguish between the different grains that can be made into flour: wheat of course, but also rye, barley, buckwheat, etc. So we...
June 3^rd 2024729 K 413.6

The beautiful story of the croissants

As you may have already noticed, cooking, baking and pastry-making are full of stories or legends, usually very romantic, about this or that product or recipe. This is often the case for named recipes, for example tarte tatin, peach melba, paris-brest and many others, but it also applies to very...
October 10^th 201814 K5

Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.

Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
March 26^th 201239 K4.5

Different kinds of pastry and dough

When cooking in general, and particularly in baking, we can make and use many different kinds of pastry and dough. All built on the same "base": flour - a powder to which we add fat, liquid or both to produce the dough which is then cooked. .
November 6^th 2012107 K 14.0

What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?

This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .
February 7^th 2017124 K 14.1

The Holy Grail of French bakers

While browsing through the recipes on this site, you may have noticed that while I adore cooking (everything, in fact, to do with eating and drinking), I am particularly drawn to bakery: bread, viennoiseries and all that goes with them – it’s a real passion of mine; I love making them and I...
March 24^th 201815 K 34.7

The mock CAP baker's certificate exam

The next instalment in my life as an apprentice baker at the French INBP professional school. I’m now halfway through training and it’s still as exciting as ever, and exhausting – but maybe I’m just getting old, or both… Anyway, a few days ago we had to go through the mock CAP exam. A sort...
May 1^st 201817 K4.4

Drawing a pattern in pastry

Often in the kitchen, in pastry-making, or in baking, we need to trace a pattern on a pastry. It's just a question of aesthetics but it has its effect after baking on a galette, pithiviers, pâté en croute (terrine in a pie crust), etc.
May 23^th 201928 K4.1

Pastry and bakery dough families

There are many kinds, or families, of pastry and bakery doughs, depending on whether you want to make a tart, a cake, a pie, a brioche, croissants and so on. I'll try to give you a quick overview of all these doughs, how they're classified, and what they're used for.
November 16^th 20209,6854.9

What happens to the bread when you make it?

This bread that we eat every day, and that our baker makes for us, what happens during its manufacture so that it becomes bread? I will try to answer this question, and to summarize the complex alchemy that takes place.
May 28^th 202110 K4.9

The 3 secrets of Parisian flan

A flan Parisien, or boulanger, is a simple yet delicious cake. A cream, a mixture of milk, eggs and sugar, is poured into a raw pastry base and baked in the oven until the pastry and cream are cooked. This is the simplest version of the recipe, probably the original one, but nowadays the cream...
July 21^th 20239,0674.7

Your oven in "proofer" mode

In the bakery, proofing is a crucial stage in the process of making light, plump breads and pastries. During proofing, the yeast ferments the sugars present in the dough, releasing carbon dioxide which forms bubbles. This process allows the dough to swell and aerate, guaranteeing a soft, light...
September 27^th 20244,3395