Egg Wash and the Oven: Pulling Early and Checking
Okay so, your croissants have proofed. They're jiggly, they're puffy, they look like little pillows and you kind of don't want to touch them. But we've got two more steps before they're actually croissants and not just very nice raw dough. Egg wash, then the bake. Let's go.
The egg wash
Whisk one egg with a splash of milk or water, maybe a tablespoon. That's it. You're not making a sauce.
Use a pastry brush and go light. Brush the tops and sides, not the cut layers on the ends if you can avoid it. Egg wash on those exposed layers can glue them shut and you lose some of that shatter when they bake. Doesn't ruin anything if you get a little on there, no worries at all, just try to favor the top surface.
Here's a thing I do that some people skip: two coats. Brush once, let it sit five minutes while you preheat, then brush again right before they go in. First coat soaks in a little since the dough's still tacky from proofing. Second coat is what actually gives you that shine and deep color. One coat works fine too if you're short on time, you'll just get a paler finish.
Don't press down when you brush. Light hand, let the brush do the work. These things are delicate at this stage and a heavy brush stroke can deflate a proof you worked all afternoon for.
Getting the oven ready
Preheat properly. I mean actually let it come to temperature and hold there ten minutes before the croissants go in, not the second it beeps. Ovens lie about being ready. Mine especially.
I bake these around 400, sometimes dropping to 375 partway through if they're coloring too fast. Every oven's different and honestly every batch is a little different too depending on how proofed they got.
Here's the opinion part
Elevation and dry air are real up here and I'd rather you pull something a touch early and check than trust a recipe that was written by somebody at sea level with humidity in their kitchen. We're up around 4,600 feet in this valley and things bake faster than the box says. A recipe timed for Ohio is not timed for American Fork. I say this every class because people don't believe it until it happens to them.
So don't set a timer and walk away. Set the timer for the low end of whatever the recipe says, and then go look.
What to actually look for
Around the 12 to 14 minute mark for a home oven, open the door (fast, don't stand there heating up the kitchen) and check color on top. You want deep golden, not pale, not blonde. If it looks like a suntan and not a sunburn, they need more time.
Pull one out if you're not sure. Actually pull one, set it on a rack, wait two minutes, and cut it open. This is the only real way to know. Looking through the oven window is a guess. Cutting one open is data.
You're checking for two things inside: are the layers actually separated and airy, or is there a gummy raw band in the center. If it's gummy, back in the oven, everybody else too, few more minutes.
This is basically the same lesson as pulling one cookie off the tray to test instead of trusting the whole batch. Test one, save the rest.
Joseph, my nine-year-old, ate an entire tray of tart shells once thinking they were cookies, and when I asked how they were he said "fine but boring." Totally deadpan. That's kind of what an underbaked croissant tastes like too, honestly. Fine. Boring. Slightly sad. Structurally not what it's supposed to be. You want your croissant to be the opposite of that report. You want flaky, you want a little resistance when you tear it, you want the inside to look like a honeycomb, not like bread.
Pulling them
When they're deep gold on top and the test one shows real structure inside, pull the tray. Let them cool on a rack, not on the pan. If they sit on the hot pan they keep cooking on the bottom and can get a little tough.
Give them at least ten minutes before you eat one, even though I know that's the hardest part of this whole class. The inside is still setting up. Cut one too soon and it'll look gummier than it actually is once it finishes cooling.
Before next time
Bring an oven thermometer if you've got one, even a cheap dial one from the hardware store. I want us to compare what the room's ovens actually read against what they say on the dial, because I promise you they're not the same number.