Simple Recipe for Sourdough Croissants: Danish Pastry Dough

Let’s continue in the croissant test kitchen! With home-baked croissants, the journey is the reward. And because it takes a few steps until your Danish pastry has enough layers, it’s all the nicer when you take the crispy and flaky croissants out of the oven. Until now, I have always cheated with a few crumbs of yeast. But with this recipe, that’s no longer necessary. Die Croissants aus Plunderteig brauchen nur Sauerteig und keine Hefe. You can leave the dough to rest overnight.

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.

Ingredients: What you need for croissants with sourdough

Possible schedule: How to make Danish pastry dough with sourdough

Day 1 5 pmMix all the ingredients together, cover up the dough, and let it rest. Form the butter sheet and put it into the fridge.
6 pmStretch and fold the dough and cover again. In winter, leave the dough to rest overnight at room temperature.
Between 8 and 9 pm.Put the dough in the fridge in summer.
Day 28 a.m.Place the dough in the fridge.
9 a.m.Roll out the dough*, fold the butter layer into the dough and make three simple rounds. If the dough gets too warm, place in the fridge for 30 minutes between laminations.
10 amRoll out the dough, cut into 12 triangles* and shape into croissants. Brush the croissants with egg or milk, cover and leave to rest.
11.30 amPreheat the oven with a steam tray consisting of astainless steel oven dish* and lava stones*.
12 pmBake the croissants until golden brown and crispy.

Five tips for laminating Danish pastry

Croissants get their airy and flaky texture by laminating the dough. The layers of dough and butter are stacked alternately on top of each other. During baking, the moisture in the butter layers evaporates and ensures a beautiful flaky texture. The folding technique used to create these layers is called lamination.

  1. Off to the fridge: Keep the dough and the butter layer in the fridge before laminating and put the dough back in the fridge for 30 minutes between each cycle.
  2. The dough and butter layer should be at the same temperature. If the butter layer is too cold, it can crack. This leads to uneven layers. If it is too warm, the butter will melt into the dough and there will be no layers.
  3. Turn your dough 90 degrees after each tour. This spreads the layers of butter right up to the edge of the dough. You can also cut off the edges of the dough after each tour using a pizza cutter*. However, you then run the risk of the butter being squeezed out when you roll it out.
  4. Press the dough flat with your rolling pin* before rolling it out. This will ensure that the butter layer is also rolled flat and not just shifted or, in the worst case, pressed out of the dough.
  5. And one last tip: If you don’t have an air-conditioned kitchen, midsummer is probably the wrong time of year to bake croissants.

How to shape the sourdough croissants

You are currently viewing a placeholder content from YouTube. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.

More Information

What to do with stale croissants?

This recipe makes 12 croissants and they taste best fresh. If you still have croissants left over two days later, you can easily turn them into crispy almond croissants with a frangipane filling.

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 bread in the oven, pour hot water onto the stones. This creates steam, which ensures that your bread rises well.
  • A cooling rack* for bread, rolls and waffles.
  • A pizzacutter* for sweet knots, croissants, etc.
  • A sharp bread knife*.

You can find more product recommendations here.

More recipes with Danish pastry

Basic Recipe: Croissants Made from Danish Pastry with Sourdough

Let’s continue in the croissant test kitchen! With home-baked croissants, the journey is the reward. And because it takes a few steps until your Danish pastry has enough layers, it’s all the nicer when you take the crispy and flaky croissants out of the oven. Until now, I have always cheated with a few crumbs of yeast. But with this recipe, that’s no longer necessary. Die Croissants aus Plunderteig brauchen nur Sauerteig und keine Hefe. You can leave the dough to rest overnight.
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 30 minutes
resting time 14 hours
Total Time 15 hours 30 minutes
Course Croissants, Danish pastry with sourdough, sourdough croissant
Cuisine french
Servings 12 Croissant

Ingredients
  

  • 300 g water
  • 50 g sourdough starter
  • 500 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

Other

  • egg or milk or a plant-based milk

Instructions
 

Day 1

  • For the dough, mix the flour, water, sugar, salt, butter and sourdough starter.
  • Cover the dough and leave to rest at room temperature for about an hour. Then stretch and fold once.
  • In winter, leave the dough to rest overnight at room temperature. In summer, leave the dough to rest for two to three hours at room temperature and then place in the fridge overnight.
  • 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 around the butter so that a 20 x 20 centimetre square of butter is enclosed in the baking paper. A rolling pin helps with this.
  • Place the butter layer in the fridge overnight.

Day 2

  • 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 round: Carefully flatten the dough with a rolling pin* and roll out until you have an elongated rectangle.
  • Fold in a third of the dough on the left-hand side and fold the right-hand third over it so that there are three equal layers of dough on top of each other.
  • Wrap the dough in a tea towel and place in the fridge for 30 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 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, cover and leave to rest for two to three hours – depending on the room temperature.
  • Brush the croissants again with milk or egg before baking.
  • Preheat the oven to 230°C (450°F), adding a steam tray made from a stainless steel baking tray* filled with lava stones*.
  • Bake the croissants for 10 minutes with steam and about 20 minutes without steam or until they are golden brown.
Keyword brunch recipe, no kneading, no yeast, overnight, with sourdough

Have you tried one of my recipes?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You would help me a lot if you would rate this recipe and write your feedback in a comment. Thank you! 🧡

Feel free to show me how it turned out! Link @kruemelig on your Instagram or Facebook post or use #kruemelig. If you want to remember the recipe for later, feel free to save it on Pinterest!

Basic croissant recipe Danish pastry with sourdough

Hey, so happy you’re here! 🧡

 

I’m Theresa and I bake – preferably with sourdough. I share my favorite recipes with you on my blog Krümelig.

Recommended Recipes

How to Make Rugbrød – Danish Rye Bread with Sourdough

How to Make Rugbrød – Danish Rye Bread with Sourdough

Today I have a classic rye bread with sourdough for you. Danish rugbrød is typically baked in a loaf tin and decorated with an oatmeal crust. Wholemeal flour and sunflower seeds make rugbrød a real power breakfast. To balance out the strong rye flavor a little, a...

read more
How to Make Easy Sourdough Bagels

How to Make Easy Sourdough Bagels

If you're looking for a little variety on your breakfast table, why not try these sourdough bagels? The rolls with the hole in the centre are cooked in a lye solution and are therefore similar to the taste of classic pretzel rolls, but much milder. Traditionally, they...

read more
The Best Wholegrain Sourdough Bread Rolls

The Best Wholegrain Sourdough Bread Rolls

One of my favorite kitchen appliances is my grain mill*. Not only is it beautiful, but it has also served me faithfully for years. This recipe for crispy wholemeal bread rolls with sourdough is no exception. They consist only of wholemeal flour (self-ground in my...

read more

2 Comments

  1. Vickie Gant

    1 star
    I followed the recipe to the letter until it got to the lava stone. I don’t have lava stones. My dough was perfect, my folds and layers were perfect. The dough cut perfectly and my crescent rolls looked perfect until I baked them. The butter all melted into the bottom of the pan, and the rolls never did brown at 230degrees. After adding another 15 minutes, i finally turned the temp up to make them brown. They lost their shape during baking. All in all a big disappointment. What did I do wrong?

    Reply
    • Oliver

      Dear Vickie, we are terribly sorry to hear that your croissants did not turn out as you hoped they would. The temperature should be 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 230 degrees Celsius. This was probably the problem, causing the butter to escape and the lack of color. In our earlier recipes we did not yet realise how important it is to specify the temperature scale – please forgive us, we should have added it already. I am sure your croissants would have been amazing if it wasn’t for the temperature, and I hope that you will try out this recipe again! Best wishes, Oliver and Theresa

      Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating