Burnt pain au raisin

There are some days when you trip at the last hurdle. This is one of those days.
I made the croissant dough last night (recipe from Richard Bertinet's Crust ) and proved overnight in the fridge.
Then rolled and rested it.
Made creme patissiere (also from Bertinet's book, not Michel Roux's recipe that I've used before. I wanted to try a different one and see the difference. Bertinet's is thicker and less sweet, better for pastries?)
Rolled out and assembled the pain au raisin.
Proved for 2 hours.
Then put into a hot oven (220C). And then they burnt.  15 minutes was way too long. And the recipe states 18 - 20 mins. I must have had the oven too hot. At that temp our oven loses some definition I think - making the difference between 220 and 240 hard to tell. Must be careful with this in future.
Or perhaps something else in the process? Don't know.
They'll still taste ok - but disappointing. Will make more ;) you know, to test.

Croissants - ham and cheese

Matt makes the best cheese/ham/toast concoctions. Perfect balance of cheese, ham, seasoning. He made up these little leftover croissants. Just look at them :) superb!
The ham was the christmas gammon (still going). Croissants homemade the other day. Genius.

Croissants - almond

This was the real point behind making the croissants - they were a vehicle for the creme d'amande I had leftover from the stollen. It was so good that i couldn't face throwing it away - so decided to make some croissants for it.
I made these at the end of a long cooking day - preparing food for 9 people at the weekend, and mainly being preoccupied with these - and they are just lovely.
I'm a happy girl.

(to be very honest, the creme d'amande was very slightly old tasting, but really, it still couldn't knock the joy). Will make properly again.

Croissants

At last! They're here! I've been prepping these for two days now. And they are a vision :) despite being cut a little small, and a smidge overdone, I am very pleased with these - the flavour is delicate, not overpowering or too rich.

I proved the dough in the fridge for 2 days. It was supposed to only be overnight, but events kept me away from the dough. And today - college was closed as their water pipes have burst :S and flooded, so I had some time to devote to these.

The dough looked on the boundary of being overproved, but turned out good.
I found it difficult to get the dough thin enough, it was very springy and kept springing back into itself. Need to find a way of managing it better. Must make it do what I want, not what it wants.

The process is really fun. You make a dough, and leave it to prove very slowly, so the flavour is good.
Then laminate the dough with cold butter - basically making a flaky pastry with dough as the base. I never realised this was what croissants were before :)
Handling the dough was a joy - it felt light and smelled great. Then i cut it and shaped it, went for a run while it proved, then baked it off. Bit of a trial in my very onesided oven, and slightly overdone because i made them a bit small but kept the cooking time the same.
All in all - it was a full time job:
 - first prove for the dough - overnight
 - laminating - rolling, resting (30 mins), x3
 - cutting shaping
 - proving - 2 hours
 - bake - 18 mins :)
But worth it.