Regular Butter First: Learn Cheap, Upgrade Later
Okay so, we need to talk about butter brands before you buy anything for your butter block.
Every single time I teach this class, somebody asks about the fancy European butter. The 82% fat stuff in the gold foil that costs twice as much at the good grocery store. And look, I get why. You've seen the pictures, you've read that it laminates better, and you want your croissants to be good right out of the gate.
Here's the thing. Don't buy it yet.
Learn on the cheap stuff first
Grab regular butter from Macey's. Whatever's on sale, whatever block butter you'd normally buy for toast. That's what you're using for your first several attempts at lamination, full stop.
I know that sounds backwards. Why wouldn't you use the better ingredient when you're trying to get good at something?
Because you're going to mess this up. Not might. Will. Everybody does, me included, more times than I can count. And when you mess up a butter block made from the $3 butter, you shrug and start over. When you mess up a butter block made from the $9 butter, it stings. It stings enough that some people get cautious and tight about the process, which is the exact opposite of what you need when you're learning to laminate. You need to be a little loose and willing to fail fast.
Learning technique on expensive butter just makes your failures cost more. That's it. That's the whole reason.
Why regular butter actually works fine
The stuff you're learning right now — encasing the butter block, rolling it out even, doing your turns, managing your temperature — none of that requires the extra fat percentage. Regular butter laminates. People made croissants for a long time before the fancy European stuff showed up on American shelves.
What regular butter won't give you is quite as much of that shatter and that flavor come final bake. But you're not there yet. Right now you're building the skill. The skill transfers. The butter brand doesn't need to.
Once you can reliably build a butter block, keep it the same firmness as your dough, and get clean turns without butter squeezing out the sides — once that's boring to you, honestly — that's when you go spend the money on the good stuff. You'll actually be able to tell the difference then, because your technique won't be the variable anymore.
What to actually buy
Unsalted, regular block butter, the kind in quarter-pound sticks. Don't get the tub stuff, don't get whipped, don't get anything that says "spreadable" on the label — that's usually got oil blended in and it won't behave right in a laminated dough. Just plain unsalted sticks. Cheapest one on the shelf that fits that description is exactly what you want.
You'll need it cold and firm but not rock hard when we build the block next lesson, so pull it out of the fridge only a few minutes before we start, not the night before.
A quick word on why butter temperature is basically everything
I've said this before and I'll keep saying it because it's the single biggest thing that determines whether your lamination works: your butter and your dough need to be the same firmness when you fold them together. Not close. The same. If your butter's colder and harder than your dough, it cracks and shatters into little rocks when you roll. If your butter's warmer and softer than your dough, it smears through and you lose your layers. Everything else in this class — how you fold, how many turns you do, how you shape — you can fix on the fly. Butter temperature you can't fix mid-fold. You have to get it right before you start rolling.
This is true whether you're using the $3 butter or the $9 butter. Which is exactly why practicing on the cheap stuff makes sense. You're not paying extra to learn a lesson that costs the same either way.
The forty-layer croissant
I'll tell you, the proudest I've ever been of a single croissant, I counted something like forty visible layers on the cut end. Forty. I photographed that thing from four different angles before I let anybody in my house eat it. Sent the photos to our ward group chat at six in the morning because I couldn't help myself.
That croissant was regular butter. Whatever was on sale that week. The layers weren't there because of the brand, they were there because by that point I'd built probably fifteen butter blocks with regular butter and finally understood, in my hands, what "same firmness" actually felt like. The butter upgrade came a long time after that photo, and honestly it was a smaller jump than I expected, because the technique was already solid.
Before next time
Pick up a couple sticks of plain unsalted butter next time you're at the store, nothing fancy, and leave it in the fridge until we build the block together. No worries at all if you forget and grab whatever's closest, that'll work too.