Croissants Glaced With Honey & Orange Zest Syrup

One of our weekend rituals include a visit to Wolves café in Illovo - a less formal place with an amazing collection of coffee table books. We usually have our Sunday brunches there after a good walk in farmers market. It offers some of the best Mushroom raviolis, peri peri chutney sandwiches, freshly baked croissants and not to forget raspberry cupcakes.

This recipe of mine is inspired by the honey glazed croissants that we had few weeks back. The batch that I baked looks nothing like what we had but it’s an honest attempt of mine to make puff pâtisserie at home. I’m no pastry chef and this recipe made me realize that how precise and careful one should be when it comes to making pastries. But definitely tastes pretty decent and flaky (maybe beginner's luck!)

Ingredients

Unbleached cake flour 450 gm

Salted butter (room temperature) 150 gm

Powdered sugar 5 teaspoons

Milk 150 ml

Instant yeast 2 teaspoons

Salt 1 teaspoon

Honey 150 gm

Orange zest 7-8 teaspoons

Directions

For making the dough

• Shift flour, salt, and sugar together in a wide mouth bowl

• Add butter and yeast to the flour mixture. Beat well using an electric beater

• Gradually pour cold milk and form dough

• Wrap up the dough with cling wrap & let it rest for 30 minutes

Note: using butter at room temperature eases the process of making the dough but make sure that butter is not melted.

For making pat fe-yeah-the (layered dough)

• Roll the well rested dough into approximately 20cm long, 15cm wide and 1cm thick rectangle

• Brush some butter on the dough and fold it for a couple of times and roll

• Repeat this process for at least thrice

For making croissants

• Cut the dough into a triangle shape
• Roll from the bottom to the top to form a croissant shape
• Place the croissants onto the greased baking tray
• Bake in the pre-heated oven at 170c until golden brown in color

Mix honey and orange zest nicely using a fork and heat it in the microwave for a minute. Drizzle some honey and orange zest mixture on hot croissants and enjoy it with hot cup of tea/coffee.