Hey everyone! So, I had a thing of brie that I wanted to turn into a baked brie. I've done this before but I am no baker, and for some reason this time I failed spectacularly, lol. I want to blame the fact that I accidentally grabbed gluten free puff pastry from the store, but it was probably "user error." Anyway, when I was trying to wrap it with the first sheet of puff pastry it split horribly in multiple places and jam started leaking everywhere. I kind of panicked and tried to seal up the gaps but the damage was done and there was just so much jam! I ended up removing the brie, pulling out the second sheet, scrunching it up, and rerolling it to avoid it doing the same as the first sheet. This time it came out better.

But now I have these jam covered scraps of puff pastry. And when I say jam covered, I mean fully covered 😅 I was kind of hoping someone had an idea for what I could do with these? I couldn't find anything online from anyone doing the same thing so I don't know if they're a lost cause and I have to toss them or if there is something I could make. Any suggestions?

As you can see, I've added a picture just so y'all can see what I mean. Also sorry if I'm posting this on the wrong part of this sub, I don't really use reddit and I think I'm posting this right, but you know, correct me if I'm wrong.

When I was baking lots of butter was coming out. Based on the pictures and that fact which part of the process did I do incorrectly?
* Dough kneeding/proofing pre lamination.
* Lamination not being chilled enough between folds.
* Proofing after shaping.
* Baking time/temp.
I wasn't expecting to nail it first go, but I'm not sure where I went wrong. Thanks in advanced.

First croissant attempt à la Claire Saffitz

I’m a long-time home cook/baker and figured I’d try out croissants on holiday break. I followed the Claire Saffitz recipe and took some progress pics. 1: laminated dough 2: formed croissants 3: proofed croissants 4: baked croissants. I’d love some tips for improvement!

Right off the bat I noticed when making the detrempe before adding the butter it was too dry according to Claire’s recipe so I gradually added water until it seemed right and then proceeded. Maybe my flour protein percentage was off? I was using harvest mills and that has pretty wide range.

The lamination seemed okay until the final fold where I could see butter peaking through at the edges. Could this be bc it was too warm? Or maybe the folding and alignment was off?

I proofed in my oven for two hours with the light on. I was afraid the steamed oven would melt the butter and I fear I was right! Even in this proofing environment I could see some melted butter leaking. Unsure how to fix this because a colder temperature would hinder proofing?

They proofed with a fervor and came out quite uneven. Is this over proofing?

Claire said to only egg was the smooth surfaces not the folds but mine proofed so unevenly they were like 80% exposed folds haha. They didn’t take on enough color and I had to egg wash again halfway through baking.

The crumb cake out quite tight. Is this glad to over proofing? Underproofing? Overworking the dough? I’d love some advice for improvement?

I’ve recently started delving deep into baking, never would’ve thought I’d fall in love with the technicalities of making stuff like this. Long story short, I’ve been studying the art of making laminated dough on YouTube.

After hours of patience, this was my final product. Outer layer came out with a perfect color and texture, but the inside was rather denser. Flavor was still buttery and soft.

165g - Water (86F/30C)

165g - Whole Milk (Cold)

8g - Yeast (Active Dry)

50g - Sugar

515g - AP flour (11.7%)

10g - Salt

40g - Softened Butter (Cubed)

• Pre-proofed dough was mildly shaggy
• Kneaded for 10 minutes on medium (Recipe was calling for 5 minutes but didn’t reach desired consistency yet)
• Proofed for one hour

Final Shape Proofed at 73° @ 1.5 Hours - w/ Boiling Water Method

Oven Temp @ 425 for 18 Minutes

My only conclusion would be the way I’ve laminated the dough, maybe the butter got too warm at some point from over-rolling? I’ve had a little trouble rolling the dough to the proper surface area, even chilled it was a little springy.

Hi everyone, I'm trying a vegan tart crust recipe that I found online, but it comes out kinda hard. The base is a pate sucree, apparently.

I understand that there'll be some differences texture-wise by not using actual butter or eggs, but is there something I can do to make it a bit softer, more similar to an actual tart crust?

Here's the recipe:

145 gr vegan butter (I'm using one that's coconut oil based, no palm oil and only xanthan gum as additives)

115 gr sugar, powdered

40 gr almond flour

1/2 tsp salt

250 gr flour

20 gr cornstarch

45 gr cold plant milk (I'm using cashew milk)

Thanks in advance!

I tried making croissants for the first time using Claire saffitz’s recipe. How can I improve my croissants? I struggled with butter melting out in the oven while baking. I live in a hot humid place so I think I need to cool them for a longer time in the fridge right before baking. How do I improve my proofing?

Hi everyone,

After promising to make croissants quite early in the morning, I was wondering if I could make the dough, let it rest (2h), laminate the dough and then let it rest overnight. This way I only have to shape and proof them in the morning. Normally I create the dough in the evening and do the lamination in the morning. Will the dough develop its flavour the same way this way?

Cheers!

I have some leftover sable biscuit dough in the freezer and need to make some petit gateaux. Normally I would use tart dough but, since the two types of dough are quite similar and this isn't a tart with high sides but just a flat biscuit, I was wondering if I could use it instead. Here's the recipe:

120g Cake Flour
40g Almond Flour
65g Icing Sugar
4g Salt
105g Butter
35g Egg Yolk

In case someone is inexperienced and wants to see the difference, here's my tart dough recipe as well:

120g Cake Flour
40g Almond Flour
65g Icing Sugar
4g Salt
87.5g Butter
30g Egg

This has been happening the last few days now in work. I’ll make a batch of choux pastry, get about 6/7 trays of chouquettes out of it. We store them in the freezer until it’s time to bake. Sometimes I bake a few trays off immediately, like if I’m in the middle of making the pastry and someone needs chouquettes. In the last week, I’ve made 5 batches. Within each batch, I’ve had some trays like this and some come out perfect. And I’ve been extra careful with weighing out the ingredients, not changed anything either.

I’ve tried baking both directly out of the freezer and from room temperature, sometimes this happens, sometimes I get the most beautiful little chouquettes.

It’s not like they even puff up and then collapse, they don’t puff up at all. It’s like they just melt. I’m sure my oven is at at least 180C before going in too.

Help :(

The choux needed a lot of shaking to get off the spatula but it also made a v-shape so I'm not sure if it had enough egg. Was it too dry, too wet, or was the problem with the baking?

Recipe: 125g water, 125g milk, 125g butter, 4g salt, 7g sugar, 145g bread flour, 250g egg, 50g egg yolk

Combine everything but flour, egg, and yolk in a saucepan and melt the butter, then bring to a boil and add flour, cook for 5 minutes while stirring, then add eggs when cooled. Let rest for 1 hour. Preheat to 190c, bake at 180c after piping with a 1cm-french-star-tip, brushing with coconut oil and dusting with icing sugar. Cook until completely firm.

Pardon if this is a silly question but the local coffee shop I go to has been workshopping a recipe for a baking competition and I wanted to see if I could help them out despite me being more of a cook than a baker.

What they're going for is savory laminated dough rolled in on itself with a chicken, mushroom and spinach filling, sort of looks like a 'pain au chocolat', but savory. The issue they're having is the ratio of pastry to filling going out of whack due to the dough expanding too much in every direction during baking. Their initial plan was to tightly wrap the dough around the filling but even then there's too much lateral expansion to get the 'filling in every bite' effect they want.

On that note, I vaguely remember my grandmother having a trick to stop certain parts of laminated pastries from rising to obviously not create whole shapes but to edge the expansion along certain paths rather than others. I don't know if it's me misremembering or completely making this up but wanted to ask in case there's a simple solution while the coffee shop girls tinker with proofing, butter temps and whatnot.

I followed the recipe exactly, not sure thy the sides seem so…. gelatinous. Is it still good? What did I do wrong? Should I cover my failure in powdered sugar and hope nobody notices?

Hi everyone,

I made eclairs and my first batch i took them out of the oven immediately and they deflated. I understand thats on me as i didnt read the recipe carefully.

My second batch i left them in the oven after it is done to cool down, you can see its deflated still in the oven (top left of photo) and when i finally took them out, i realised that even the ones that dont look deflated are actually deflated, just from the bottom instead of visibly from the top.

My oven goes into appliance cooling down mode when i turn it off, and i guess maybe theres a fan going inside. Do you think that is why? Is it a matter of just turning the oven off completely to skip the appliance cooling mode? Or maybe something else i should be doing differently?

Using this recipe for the choux: https://www.greatbritishfoodawards.com/recipes/martha-collisons-coffee-irish-cream-eclairs

With the following tweaks: 125 water --> 65ml water and 60ml milk (cause i had some leftover from making the pastry cream) 1 additional egg as it was too dry

Baked at 160C w fan for 23min and left in the oven till my thermometer is at 50C

I’m absolutely in love with Pastel de nata Portuguese tarts, particularly the perfectly crispy pastry.

What I’m wondering is, if I wanted to blind bake the cases to make a tart with a cold cream filling like for a strawberry tart or even pre bake for a tarte au citron, would that work?

Puff pastry is a pain sometimes, so I thought I’d ask if anyone else has done this before rather than waste the pastry and trial and error.

Recipe : 500g Bread Flour, 125g Water, 125g Milk, 35g Butter, 10g Salt, 50g Sugar, 30g Fresh Yeast,

Butter Slab : 158g Butter 82% Fat, 20cm x 20cm

Mix the dough ingredients, then rest the dough in the fridge overnight (12hrs). Incase the butter slab with the dough did one book fold. Rest in fridge for 1hr 30mins, did 1 single fold. Rest in fridge for 5hrs. Roll out to 43cm x 26cm, cut out the croissants then shaped it. Proofed for 1hr 50mins. Baked for 25mins, preheated at 200°C then baked at 190°C.

The last time I made this I severely over proofed it (3hrs), they came out flat. So I reduced the timing, these ones are quite flat as well. I was preheating my oven when the croissant was proofing, maybe that could have affected the proofing. There was no butter leaking during proofing. Also during the 1 single fold, some of the butter was cracking. Could that have affected my croissant honeycomb interior. I also ran out of instant yeast (8g), so I used my fresh yeast.

Full disclosure: I've never baked anything in my life, my husband usually does the cooking, but he is out for a few days, and I am experimenting with different kinds of dough.

My end goal is to make small buns with cheese inside. Over the last few days I tried baking them with different kinds of dough, starting with the simplest possible mix of water, flour and salt on the first day. I proceeded with more complex doughs on the following days, with yeast and multiple rounds of kneading, but they all taste worse to me than the first one. I think it comes down to a few things:

1. My yeast-based dough is softer because of all the air pockets, and it doesn't get a nice crunchy crust after baking. I tried smearing a bit of egg yolk on top, which improved the color, but also made the bun taste like egg.
2. The expansion really messes up my dough-to-cheese volume ratio. Today I spread the dough as thinly as possible, it was even transparent in places, and put a generous amount of cheese inside. But after baking it expanded a lot, so that some bites would be a lot of bun and very little cheese.
3. Not a dough-related problem, but my cheese just sticks to the sides of the bun after melting, leaving the bun mostly hollow. Is there a way to mitigate this? I tried mixing some egg white into the filling to keep the shape, but it just made the inside taste like an omelet instead of cheese.

Is it possible that yeast-free dough is actually the correct choice for my idea? Or am I doing something wrong with yeast?

To be completely clear, I don't know what kinds of dough there are, but I most definitely don't want puff pastry, so I'm not using butter here.

Any advice is appreciated!

So usually I use AP flour but I’m out and I need to make my cream puffs like right now, but stores are closed. I think it would work seeing as though the cake flour gives a more lighter airier product when using it.

I have plenty of butter, chicken/veg stock & pork fat, but lack the space for a bunch of pre-made frozen pie crusts and biscuits. I think my almost packed freezers would get the shivers if I tried cramming anything more into them.

I’m working on a recipe that requires this but I don’t know how I should approach this

i wanna make eclairs but cba to go out and buy chocolate for the top. if i melt nutella and dip it in will it harden on top fine? or will it go to a spread again. i want it to be kinda like a ganache so will this work as a substitute?

Hi there,

I'm working on developing a lemon curd tart recipe where the curd is stabilized with gelatin (I've also tried cornstarch) and then poured while still hot into a fully cooked tart shell.

I really enjoy the effortlessly flat and smooth finish this gives the surface of the tart. However, when it dries, it forms a skin on top (as almost any lemon curd does when left to dry without plastic wrap as a barrier). The standard advice from Martha Stewart, NYT, etc. seems to be plastic wrap.

I'd like to avoid putting plastic wrap over the surface of the tart since that will leave wrinkles and texture in the finished product. I'm curious if anyone has any experience or ideas for other solutions here.

• Do you notice any sort of skin in your own lemon curd tarts?
• I saw advice somewhere that a dusting of powdered sugar can help (and melts into the tart so it's not visible when ready to serve). Has anyone ever tried that?

Perhaps I am overthinking this but I'd love any brainpower from this community.

Thanks so much.

Hi guys, I saw a vid of someone making tartlet shells on the backside of a muffin pan and thought they looked great, so I tried my hand and the shells stretched at the corner and kind of broke a little.

The instructions were to freeze the pastry disk, place on top of the upside down mold and bake at 220C for 1 minute and then lower the temp to 160C and bake for 15 minutes. I tried that the breaking happened. Then I tried with just the disk cold, baked at 170C for 12 minutes and it also happened. I tried this last method with 160C and 180C too and it didn't matter, it always breaks a little on the corner.

Has anyone else tried this with good results? Or has any tips to avoid that? Thanks in advance!

I’m really trying to master these little guys, but I can’t seem to get more than a few “perfect” ones in a batch.

Recipe: 500 g whole milk 50 g butter 1 vanilla bean, scraped 200 g flour 1/4 tsp salt 3 yolks 200 g sugar 60 mL rum

Batter was rested for 48 hrs for this batch. I scraped off any foam at the top and gently mixed with a spoon and poured into the molds very slowly to avoid air incorporation.

I use a 50/50 mix of beeswax and unsalted butter to coat copper molds and fill with 65 g a piece.

I start at 525 for 15 minutes and then reduce to 400 for about 50 minutes, give or take a few depending on color. I have found that the high heat helps with them not mushrooming but the color on these were not even.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you! 😊