If you’re looking for a recipe for quick croissants for a spontaneous Sunday brunch, then you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you fancy a sourdough project lasting several days – a croissant meditation – then this recipe is just right for you. Don’t let the three-day process put you off! The first two days consist mainly of waiting. The real fun begins on the third day.
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How to make sourdough croissants
On the first day, in the evening, you prepare the poolish, a yeast starter that gives the croissants extra leavening power. On the second day, it’s time for the sourdough and the butter sheet. Both go into the fridge overnight. The actual croissant process then follows on the third day. Tours provide the typical flaking. More rounds make for more layers, but there is also a risk that the butter layer between the dough layers will become too thin due to too many rounds and will merge with the dough. And that means: no layers. Normally you do between three and five rounds of lamination. To keep the butter layers nice and separate, it is important that the dough remains cold and the butter firm. That’s why the dough always goes back into the fridge between rounds.
Ingredients for sourdough croissants with poolish
- Wheat flour: Type 550 or Bread Flour.
- Dry yeast or fresh yeast for the poolish.
- Water: Cold in summer and lukewarm in winter.
- Sourdough starter: It is not absolutely necessary to constantly feed the sourdough starter fresh, but it should not have been refreshed more than a week ago. If you have sourdough discard, I will be happy to provide you with suitable recipes. My personal method is to feed my sourdough with an equal amount of water and flour. I use a mixture of wheat flour and wholemeal rye flour. If you choose a different water-to-flour ratio for your sourdough, remember to adjust the amount of water in the recipe accordingly. Here are some helpful tips to keep your sourdough starter vital and healthy at all times.
- Soft butter or vegan butter for the dough and for the butter layer.
- Sugar and salt for flavour.
Helpful tools – My recommendations
✨ The links with an star* are affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and buy something, I get a small commission and you support my work (thanks for that 🧡). This does not change the price for you. You can find more information on privacy policy here.✨
- A Danish Whisk* – especially if you don’t use a kitchen machine. This allows you to mix your ingredients without the whole dough sticking to the spoon.
- A wooden rolling pin*.
- A steam tray consisting of a stainless steel oven mould* and lava stones*. The tray is filled with the stones and placed on the bottom of the oven during preheating. When you put your croissants in the oven, pour hot water onto the stones. This creates steam, which ensures that your croissants rise well.
- A pizza cutter* to cut the triangles for the croissants.
- A sharp bread knife*.
You can find more product recommendations here.
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Recipe: Homemade Sourdough Croissants with Poolish
Ingredients
Poolish
- 150 g water
- 150 g wheat flour all purpose flour (or type 550)
- 1 pinch instant yeast or a small crumb of fresh yeast
Dough
- 150 g water
- 50 g sourdough starter
- 350 g wheat flour all purpose flour (or type 550)
- 50 g soft butter or vegan butter
- 25 g sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
Butter Layer
- 200 g soft butter or vegan butter
- 40 g wheat flour all purpose flour (or type 550)
Other
- 50 g (oat) milk
- 1 tsp. sugar
- ½ tsp. salt
Instructions
Day 1
- For the poolish, mix water, flour and yeast to a homogenous dough.
- Cover the poolish and leave to rest for 12 hours at room temperature or 24 hours in the fridge.
Day 2
- For the dough, mix the poolish with the flour, water, sugar, salt, butter and sourdough.
- Cover the dough and leave to rest at room temperature for about two hours. Stretch and fold occasionally during this time.
- Place the dough in the fridge overnight or for eight to 12 hours.
- For the butter layer, mix 200g soft butter with 40g flour.
- Then place in the centre of a sheet of baking paper. Fold the baking paper over so that a 20 x 20 centimeter slab of butter is enclosed in the baking paper. A rolling pin helps with this.
- Place the butter sheet in the fridge overnight.
Day 3
- Roll out the dough into a square and place the butter plate (without the baking paper) in the centre of the dough. Fold the corners of the dough around the butter plate to form an envelope.
- First tour: Carefully flatten the dough with a rolling pin* and roll out until you have an rectangle.
- Fold the left-hand side of the rectangle in thirds and fold the right-hand side over it so that there are three even layers of dough on top of each other.
- Wrap the dough in the baking paper of the butter sheet and place in the fridge for 30 to 40 minutes.
- Then unwrap the dough again, carefully flatten with a rolling pin* and roll out into a long rectangle.
- For the second round, fold the rectangle in again to create three layers of dough.
- Perform a total of three rounds. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 to 40 minutes between batches.
- After the third round, the dough is rolled out into a large rectangle.
- Use a pizza cutter* to cut the long side of the rectangle into six equal pieces.
- Divide each of the six rectangles diagonally to create twelve triangles.
- Carefully stretch the triangles and roll them up under tension to form a croissant.
- Place the croissants on a baking tray, brush with milk, water or egg yolk, cover and leave to rest for two to three hours – depending on the room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 230 °C (450 °F).
- Mix the (oat) milk with the salt and sugar and brush the croissants with the mixture.
- Bake the croissants for 20 to 25 minutes or until they are golden brown.
- Bon appétit!
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Hi Theresa….any chance you already have this recipe in English? Is this recipe vegan? Would like to try.
Thanks.
Hi Denise, sorry for the wait and thank you so much for pointing out the missing translation – we will do it right away! We usually make the vegan version of this recipe (with vegan butter and oat milk) and we love it! Best wishes, Oliver