Croissant-Doughnut Demo at Enderun Colleges

I’m excited to publish this post that my dear friend Maus had written.  It’s nice to know that she enjoyed the cronuts demo at one of the best culinary schools in the Philippines, Enderun.  I remember how I enjoyed my first trip to Enderun and how I gushed about the experience.

In this post, Maus will be sharing her thoughts and learnings about the Croissant-Doughnut Demo at Enderun.  If you want to experience it yourself, there is still one demo class scheduled on August 31, 2013 from 9 am to 12 noon.  You can contact Florence Elumba for inquiries at +63-2-8565000 local 505 or +639178811217.

– Roch

As a child, I was a huge fan of doughnuts; it’s my ultimate ulcer-stopping snack back in the days.  Those were the days when it was only either Dunkin’ Donuts or Mister Donut!  Soon, I started trying out other baked goodies, since I never really liked eating plain bread.  I came to like quite a variety such as pita, roti and croissants – mainly for their texture and taste.

Fast forward to the current times – just a few months back, people start going gaga over croissant-doughnuts or popularly known as cronuts (this word is under trademark application as of this writing).  It did pique my interest, with everyone talking about how good it was and the queues of people lining up to purchase these – though I didn’t made a budge to try…

And finally, last month, my friend Roch asked me if I would like to attend a demo class on making croissant-doughnuts on her behalf.  I said YES! because…

1. Demo class was held in Enderun – I’ve never been to any culinary school PLUS I’ve also heard about the out-of-this-country campus setting. And,
2. Why not see what this craze is made of, and finally get to try it!

So, last July 27, Chef Marc Chalopin finally showed us all what it takes to bake a craze.

Ingredients for the croissant-doughnut:

45 mL cup of Milk
45mL cup of Water
125 grams of Bread Flour
125 grams of Plain/Cake Flour
8 grams of Dry Yeast
35 grams Sugar
4 grams of Salt
2 pcs of Egg
150 grams of butter

How to make the croissant-doughnuts:

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a food processor (flour, salt and sugar) with the chunks of butter and pulse them.
2. In a separate pan, combine milk and water. Warm over the stove and mix in the dry yeast. Make sure not to bring the milk+water to a boil.
3. Combine the milk+water+yeast (2) with the flour+butter (1) mixture and add in the egg and mix this carefully – without mashing the butter chunks.
4. Cover the dough with cling wrap and put into chiller for about 1.5 to 2 hrs.
5. Take the dough out from the chiller after 2 hrs in time for kneading. During the kneading and rolling process, make sure that the table has sufficient flour to keep them from sticking to the table.
6. Roll the dough until it’s about 1.5 cm thick with the chunks of butter still intact. Control the consistency of the dough’s thickness with your finger; by running them across the dough as you knead and roll it.
7. Fold the dough into 3; and repeat rolling the dough.
8. Remove excess flour using a brush
9. Fold the dough into 3. Note that the folding process allows the butter to be blended in, without actually mashing them. This process is similar to that of making a croissant.
10. Wrap the dough with a cling wrap, and place inside the chiller for 30 mins. Then roll and fold it 2 more times (repeating steps 6 to 9 twice)
11. At the last folding step, cover the dough with cling wrap and place in chiller for 12 to 24 hrs to allow the yeast to ferment.

Cutting the dough

1. Before cutting the dough, thread the dough with your hand
2. Cut the dough with 2 cookie cutters (one small circle and one big circle) to create the doughnut shape
3. Then wrap the cut dough with cling wrap, and proof them (to make the dough rise); either thru a proofer machine or in a warmer part of the kitchen/house.

Cooking the croissant-doughnut:

1. At 170 deg Celsius, deep fry the dough.  Approximately 2 mins at each side, without pressing the dough while frying.

Some notes that are not only applicable to cooking croissant-doughnuts but also to other fried goodies:

• it’s best to cook the <insert food item, in this case dough> straight from the chiller
• if oil is not hot enough, result is too oily
• if oil is too hot, the dough will not proof

2. Place the fried croissant-doughnuts on paper towel to remove excess oil and chill them.

One realization I had from the demo class is that croissant-doughnuts are FRIED, not baked 😉

Now, there are several ways to customize your croissant-doughnuts! It can be the shape of the cuts or adding more flavors into the bread. During the class, Chef Chalopin showed us how to make 3 different fillings:

Pistachio white chocolate ganache

Ingredients:

210 mL Organic cream
100g White Chocolate chips
25g Pistachio cream
Drops of green food coloring

Procedure:

1. Put creams in a pot
2. Bring this to a boil
3. Pour the boiled cream over the white chocolate chips
4. Add pistachio cream
5. Let the mixture sit, until the chocolate chips are melted
6. Blend the mixture afterwards, and place in the chiller or on a bowl of ice to cool it. It’s best to have it in chiller for a day before use.
7. Add green coloring to this mixture

Orange cream

Ingredients:

Juice from 5 pieces of oranges
60g sugar
25g of Cake flour
3 pieces of eggs

Procedure:

1. Heat orange juice and bring to a boil
2. Mix sugar and flour in a separate bowl
3. Add egg to mixture from step (2)
4. Pour the boiled orange juice into step (3)
5. Heat the mixture from step (4) and bring to a boil. Whipping the mixture as you cook it to prevent it from sticking into the pot. This will take approximately a minute or 2.
6. Spread the mixture on a rectangular pan.

Sugar Icing

Ingredients:

50g sugar
50g egg whites
Drops of lemon juice
Drops of red food coloring

Procedure:

1. Place sugar, egg white and red food coloring in a bowl and whip this. This is similar to making meringues. The more you whip the mixture, the firmer it gets. Just in case it gets too tough, add more egg whites to soften the mix.
2. Add drops of lemon juice or can be calamansi juice as an alternative. Adding the citric juice makes the egg white whip fluffier due to acid.

This icing can be used even after 1 to 2 weeks, provided that it is placed inside the chiller.

After all of the preparations, we’re on the final stretch before the croissant-doughnuts find its way into our tummies! :p

1. Slice the croissant-doughnuts into half; and place the filling (sugar icing, pistachio or orange cream)
2. Garnish with fruits and nuts to go with each cream. Strawberries for the red sugar icing, chopped pistachios for the pistachio cream and orange zest to go with the orange cream.
3. Dip the other half of the croissant-doughnut to the filling and place it on top of garnished half.

Voila!:) Croissant-doughnut taken with my notes from the demo class, with pipe of pistachio cream and fresh strawberry on the side.

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Croissant-Doughnut Demo at Enderun Colleges
Enderun Colleges, 1100 Campus Avenue, McKinley Hill, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, Philippines
+63-2-8565000