real life test kitchen: williams-sonoma frozen croissant dough
When asked if I would test out Williams-Sonoma’s frozen croissant dough I couldn’t have been more excited. Though I’m sometimes a food snob (I don’t allow boxed baking mixes in my kitchen) pre-made dough is a luxury worth the occasional indulging –– who needs all that kneading and rolling? The box arrived on ice in just a couple of days and I was psyched to find the instructions couldn’t have been easier. Click through to the next page to read the rest of Erica P.’s kitchen experiment!
One day ahead of baking, I defrosted the pre-cut dough in the refrigerator. Then, with a little imagination and a little mess the rest came together in no time. I decided on Gruyere cheese, bittersweet chocolate, and fruit preserves as my fillings. Working with two triangles at a time (keep the rest cold in the fridge) you just lightly stretch the corners, add a couple of tablespoons of filling along the base edge, fold in the base corners and roll up. Once all the croissants were prepared I covered them loosely with saran wrap and left them to rise for the next 2.5 hours. Then with a light brushing of a milk and egg wash the croissants were ready for the oven. A quick 25 minutes later and voila! Fresh, buttery croissants any cook could be proud of. Some of the fruit preserves leaked out a bit and a few of the cheese croissants sprung a leak but all in all the dough cooked up golden and flakey and they had a believable homemade taste. The results are substantially better than grocery store croissants. Especially when you eat them warm out of the oven. They even rival bakery croissants — big, fluffy, golden, flakey… pretty darn good overall.
A note on the cost, which is about $40 for the box. It makes 18… so it ends up less than $3/croissant. I do think they were delicious, and I like that you can customize them to your liking (fillings). Plus, it’s fun. So I think it’s worth it if you’re uncomfortable making your own dough. I’ve never tried making croissant dough from scratch so I’m not sure how hard it is.
I think next time I might try a sharper cheese instead of the Gruyere and maybe some with chopped apples and cinnamon or fresh apricots instead of preserves. Any suggestions?
They look terrific!!! I like that you can make as many or as few as you want, just keep the rest cold. Nothing better than treating your guests to freshly made croissants “just for them”.
I wish I could try one right now! They look so great! Good Job Erica P.
I bet a slightly sweeten cream cheese (cream cheese, with egg, vanilla and some sugar) would be deeeee-licious as a filling. Or a mixture of rasberry preserves and the sweetened cream cheese.
A bakery here in Grand Rapids, Michigan (where a lot of Dutch folks live) puts a sweetened almond paste filling inside that is to die for.
I love your site. Nice work.
I had the pleasure of “sampling” Erica’s creations. The “sampling” overflowed, before I knew it, into a gorging of five croissants. The overwhelming volume of deliciousness in my stomach hurt a little bit, but the pain was entirely worth the satisfaction enjoyed by my taste buds.
I do a fairly ghetto version of the exact same thing fairly often, using Pillsbury jumbo crescent roll dough. (I’m quite the opposite of a food snob, obviously!) I usually do chocolate ones, using mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, but another excellent batch I made once had raspberry preserves as filling.
After reading this post I had a bad craving for some croissants. I to went the ghetto route and bought some Pilsbury crescent roll dough.
Yummy, now my stomach is growling. Oprah often gives these away when she has that crazy Christmas show where she gives away millions of dollars of her favorite products.
They look really great. In New York City, there is a bakery called Ceci Cela Patisserie with 2 locations one in Nolita and one in Tribeca, where you can buy real French butter croissants frozen. I think they are 10 for $9 (for chocolate) and around $7 for 10 plain croissants. In any case, they rival the ones I had in Paris and make your kitchen smell great like French bakery goodness.
They do look pretty damn good! I’m starving too. You’re killing me here!!