On Food and Cooking

Croissants According to Raymond Calvel,
croissants first made a splash at the 1889
Paris World’s Fair, where they were one of
many kinds of Wienerbrod, or Vienna goods
brought from the city that specialized in rich,
sweet pastries. The original croissants were
enriched yeast-raised breads shaped into a
crescent. It wasn’t until the 1920s that
Parisian bakers had the idea of forming them
from a laminated dough, thus creating a
marvelous pastry that is both flaky and
moistly, richly, tenderly bready.
Croissants are made by preparing a firm
but malleable dough with minimal kneading
from flour, milk, and yeast; the proportion of
liquid is 50–70 parts to 100 flour. Some butter
may be added to the dough during mixing to
make the dough more extensible and easily
rolled out. In earlier times, the dough was
allowed an initial rise of six to seven hours;
today it’s only around one hour. The more
time allowed for fermentation, the fuller the