What Does A LOT of dough + A LOT of butter + 183 E-mails Make?

Why A LOT of fun & giggling, of course! Ohh and there was also a dash of panicking and then finally the outcome: Croissants! Warning: Heavily photographed post ahead.. Cute lil buttery soldiers aren't they? Aww yes, kids - the five SEVEN of us kooky gals are back with this month's baking assignment cross-post. It all started when two gals were craving a good pretzel. After that a few other gals decided they'd like to join in on the fun so we had five gals craving a good biscotti, which was great! And what's happened since? Oh yeah, babies.. another two gals wanted in on the fun and we welcomed them with open arms! Ohh that flaky goodness! This month's craving was slightly more involved than our past baking adventures. To say the very least. God. We had 1 gal who had made croissants once before in her baking class and two gals who use to make croissants for a living.. and then - well.. we had 4 gals who didn't know what they hell they were doing. har! And so we formed an e-mail support system - you know, a way to ask if the step you were working on was similar to their experiences.. or a way to share a tip or a blunder that you had experienced. Mmm hmm.. or it could or could not have went like this: From: Lisa To: Ivonne, Peabody, Helen, Brilynn, Veronica, Jenny Subject: The bad juju is starting ALREADY!! "Ugh! Last week when I made my preferment it was of batter like consistency - tonight, it's like dough??? I double checked my measurements of 3/4 c. milk 1 TB yeast & 1 1/3 c. flour. How did this happen? Should I make new? I'm panicking people! xoxo" From: Ivonne To: Lisa, Peabody, Helen, Brilynn, Veronica, Jenny Subject: The bad juju is starting ALREADY!! "Hi Lisa, I made my preferment earlier and mine was also like dough. I let it rise for 2 hours and it rose very nicely into a puffy sponge that smelled strongly of yeast. It was very similar to the sponges that we made in baking class so I'm thinking that this is okay. Ivonne" Notice the difference in tone between the two? She was my pillar, that Ivonne. That was Friday night, and that was just 2 of the 16 replies for that thread. When it was all said and done (around 11 pm), we had all discovered that Ivonne was going to be waking back up at 4 am to start her dough as she had classes all day Saturday, and Helen was thinking about doing bad things to her husband when he announced surprise guests were coming the next night for a dinner party: From: Helen To: Lisa, Ivonne, Brilynn, Peabody, Veronica, Jenny Subject: The bad juju is starting ALREADY!! "I can't sleep....I debated getting up early and then form my dough and go run, but I'd be to obsessed with it while running and might lose focus. Then I have to train 3 clients in the afternoon and hubby just told me about a dinner party for tomorrow night. I could have killed him. "Hello! Croissant Freaking Weekend here!" I might do the dough between work and dinner and roll it at night. I might be the last one posting.... BTW, the day for our post is the 30th right?! "Courage" everybody!" heheheee! But Saturday was a new day and we were all up early talking about what we had in store for the rest of the day. There was going to be a lot of dough in our small mixers and the possibility of mixer engines dying a painful death because of it. There was going to be a lot of rising time, a lot of folding time and a lot of time to sit and think and panic in between steps. Some of us were concentrating so hard on the steps to good croissant making that this soon came through the wire (cable?): From: Jenny To: Lisa, Ivonne, Peabody, Brilynn, Veronica, Helen Subject: It's going to be a good juju day! Dammit! "Just about to go pull my preferment out and get moving - also been distracted trying to figure out where the regular milk disappeared to for the kids cereal (seriously, the entire jug is missing!)" Followed a few hours later with, From: Jenny To: Lisa, Ivonne, Peabody, Brilynn, Veronica, Helen Subject: It's going to be a good juju day! Dammit! "Well I just ran into my first problem - my mixer was definitely not big enough for this - I thought I was going to kill it with that max of 4 minutes of mixing, even when I kept turning it off to pull apart the dough (so I knew it was elastic because it kept springing back together!) And fyi, the missing milk was found, in the kitchen cupboard where the mugs are, probably sitting there since 4pm yesterday, where I probably put it. I've never done that before, so I think I was very, very distracted with my croissant prep at the time!" hahahaha! Veronica was holding her own so far, but soon we found out she was having a different problem all together: From: Veronica To: Brilynn, Jenny, Lisa, Helen, Ivonne, Peabody Suject: Re: It's going to be a good juju day! Dammit! "I just formed my rectangles and refrigerated them. Those are great notes Lisa. I'm going to write mine down too. My cat is playing a guest starring role in this. He has been driving me crazy since last night. I bought a new pastry brush yesterday and washed it and left it to dry. He got on the counter (which he isn't allowed) and ran away it . The hubby ran after him and carried him back and he still had the pastry brush in his mouth (kinda like a dog with a stick). Had to wash the pastry brush real good again. This morning he woke up with me and has been watching me make the dough. I'm guarding my ingredients and utensils like a hawk!" After seeing Pashmi, I dissolved into a fit of giggles.. har! Later that morning, to my surprise, we received an update from Ivonne that went a lil something like this: From: Ivonne To: Helen, Brilynn, Veronica, Jenny, Peabody, Lisa Subject: How I Learned to Hate Croissants! "Good morning my friends! I got up at 5:30 this morning to roll out the croissant dough. I finished about 10 minutes ago. To begin with, I found the dough very difficult to roll out. While the butter was distributed nicely and didn’t really pop through or anything, it took some serious upper body strength to roll out this dough. (Note to self: visit gym.) Once I rolled it out, I then divided it in half lengthwise, because I decided to make mini-croissants instead of regular sized ones. When I rolled out my second batch of dough, I also divided it in half lengthwise and made croissants with one half and chocolate ones with the other. Mainly because I got tired of cutting and rolling croissants. In total I would say I got about 30 mini croissants and about 20 chocolate ones. I’ve attached a few pictures. While this was an interesting process, and I’m glad I did it, I honestly can’t see myself making croissants at home on a regular basis. To begin with, and perhaps this is a commentary on our hectic lives, my schedule just doesn’t fit the steps it takes to make croissants. Secondly, it’s damn hard! Thirdly, I’ve got some amazing pastry shops within driving distance that make kick-ass croissants. But I’m glad we tried! Kisses to us!" My pillar? Although not nearly fallen, was showing signs of crumbling. hahahaa! So you kind of get the idea of what we were going through, yes? THREE days of croissant making is a ride that I enjoyed immensely due to the constant chit-chatting through e-mail. It was also a ride I doubt I'll be taking again any time soon, even if my lil croissants turned out flakey, buttery and delicious (especially the pain au chocolat and pain au jambon, fancy French speak for croissants filled with chocolate and croissants filled with ham and gruyere cheese). As Ivonne stated above, croissant making just doesn't fit in with most of our lifestyles these days - personally, I had to pause the movie I was watching like 4 times! Sheesh! =) From: Lisa To: Ivonne, Brilynn, Veronica, Helen, Jenny, Peabody Subject: Re: I'm done! "Okay well.. I don't know if I've done a foolish thing or not.. I did a very quick search on the net for advice.. got 1/2 that said you could freeze the dough after rolling but before proofing and got 1/2 that said you should freeze after proofing. Knowing that pizza dough and croissant dough are not even remotely the same - I still decided to go the route of my pizza dough - which is, after it raises the first time, I freeze individual amounts before the 2nd rise. So that's what I did.. instead of proofing that first batch, I threw them into the deep freeze. The 2nd batch is proofing now.. I did some mini plain, some mini chocolate and some slightly bigger than mini ham & cheese. I'll send you pictures after I bake them later this afternoon. I can't thank you gals enough for all the support and giggles and panic we've shared! Although I hope, nay PRAY, that next month's project is much more simple - I hope we all manage to bake again on the same day so we can "discuss" throughout the process. :D Ivonne and I discussed briefly last night - about everyone submitting one suggestion for next month's project and then we'll hold a vote. After the vote we'll start a list of the "losers" for future projects so hopefully we'll get to make everyone's suggestions. How does that sound to you guys? xoxox" Yes, I froze some for enjoyment on a later date and yes, it appears that this monthly cross-post isn't nearing an end anytime soon.. HOORAY!! =) Everyone, at this point, had agreed that next month's baking adventure will be less involved - some were a lil more than agreeable: From: Jenny To: Lisa, Helen, Peabody, Veronica, Ivonne, Brilynn Subject: Re: I'm done! "So next month we are doing something simple, right? Like micorwave popcorn? :-)" From: Peabody To: Ivonne, Helen, Lisa, Veronica, Brilynn, Jenny Subject: Re: I'm done! "Now you all know why I groaned when you said this is what we were doing. Next to cream puffs these are my least favorite...and I have made them a ton." Thankfully, Peabody had made her croissant earlier in the week, as she had a mishap over the weekend and hurt her leg! Ugh! We're all hoping she's feeling better =) So, after 183 e-mails, roughly 12 pounds of butter, 389 pounds of dough (that might be a slight exaggeration) and aching shoulder, back and stomach muscles we were done, sated and very, very happy croissant bakers. :D