>> from the editors of cook's illustrated magazine, it's america's test kitchen with your host christopher kimball, featuring test kitchen chefs julia collin davison, bridget lancaster, becky hays, with adam ried in the equipment corner and jack bishop in the tasting lab. discover the secrets of america'remostood testers and tasters, today on america's test kitchen. today on america's test kitchen, chris takes a trip to paris in search of the best croissants. next, julia shows chris how to make foolproof croissants at home. then, becky reveals the secrets to flawless crêpes. that's all right here on america's test kitchen. >> america's test kitchen is brought to you by dcs by fisher & paykel.

america's cooks rely on innovation and culinary precision. dcs by fisher & paykel, offering premium indoor and outdoor kitchen appliances. for over 50 years, miracle-gro products have helped home chefs grow fresh vegetables and herbs. miracle-gro soils and plant foods provide the essential nutrients plants need to grow bountiful produce. gardening tips are available online at miracle-gro.com. by cooking.com, an online retailer for the kitchen enthusiast. if it's not in your kitchen, try ours. chateau ste. michelle. digital wine cellar and pairings can be found online. and by kohler. diamond crystal salt, the gourmet choice. plum amazins from sunsweet. >> have you ever wondered where to get the best croissant in the world? well, the first place to start would be paris. that's where i am now. the second place is eric kayser. there's many, many stores around paris. we're going to go in and interview the baker here at eric kayser, and find out the secrets of making a great french

croissant. and i'm here with alexander and sebastian. sebastian is the master baker here. so i was interested in the number of turns, because that's thhard part for home cooks, especially in the united states. so how many turns, how many layers, do you get in a croissant at eric kayser? >> so, in all, it's 32 layers. it's done twice. it's done first with a sheet of dough that is flattened. we put butter on top, put the dough on top of that, flatten that, put the butter again, and that process is repeated. it's done in two different levels and it's a total of 32 layers of dough. after lamination, the dough is cut. we put it in triangular pieces for the rolling. each triangle is stretched and rolled. >> so this is the object of my desire, which is the croissant, the point of all this. let's just actually take a little look inside. it's very flaky on the outside, it's buttery-- it's not greasy, though-- and it's nice and soft on the inside, which is what you want. mmm.

i don't think you get croissants like this back in the states, but let's head back to america's test kitchen. thanks to eric kayser, we know a little bit more about some of their secrets of making croissants. let's head into the kitchen with julia and figure out how we can make croissants at home, back in the states. so it's obviously no surprise that in paris, they have great croissants, though they're harder to fi than they were 20 or 30 years ago. >> huh. >> but nobody in paris, in their right mind-- unless they're a baker, professional baker-- would make them at home, of course, because you go out and buy them. >> makes sense. >> now, the question i have for you is, here in america's test kitchen: this is not an easy recipe, let's be honest. >> nope. >> it's time consuming. why are we making croissants? >> because it's fun! >> it is fun! >> yeah, but really it's, you know, the ultimate baking thing, and if you can make a good croissant, man, you got street cred. >> but also lots of places in the united states, even in big cities sometimes, it's hard to get a good one. >> that's right. >> so two reasons, okay. >> so, croissant.

pretty easy. you have dough, you have a slab of butter, and you wrap the dough around the butter and you roll it out and you fold them and fold it and fold it so you have very thin layers of dough and butter so that when you make the croissant, the butter melts and forms the steam, and you get those flaky layers. all right, so now we're going to start by making the dough. and this is three tablespoons of unsalted butter. now we're going to add whole milk. this is one-and-three-quarters cups whole milk. we're not going to really heat it; we're going to let the heat in the pan and the butter just warm it through a little bit so that it helps the yeast get started. i want to swirl this together, then put it into our mixing bowl. so now we're going to add the yeast, and this is four which is also known as rapid rise-- and two teaspoons of salt, a quarter cup of sugar, and finally, the flour. this is four-and-a-quarter cups of all-purpose flour. we're going to put it on a low speed, let the dough come together, and that takes about two or three minutes. and then we're only going to knead it for about a minute longer. >> so while she's putting that dough together, let's talk a little bit more about protein content in flour.

well, of course, cake flour has very low protein content, and they measure content by taking 30 grams of flour and figuring out how much actual protein is in it. well, this is eight or nine percent, which would be a little under three grams of protein per 30 grams of flour. all-purpose tends to be between ten percent and 11%, and bread flour runs usually 12% to 13%. now, there's an exception to this: king arthur sells an all-purpose flour, it's in every supermarket, that is on the high end of all-purpose. it's 11.8% protein. so it's sort of on the very low end of bread flour and the very high end of all-purpose. we liked this because it had enough structure so when we actually baked the croissant, they baked up nice, had nice layering, but it was still soft enough to roll out. so all-purpose flour from king arthur was the one flour we thought was really best for this recipe. >> all right, so this dough has come together. now we're just going to go up a speed and knead it for only a minute longer. now, you don't want to develop too much gluten at this stage, because we're going to have to roll it out so much and that's when the gluten development

happens and if you do it now, you're going to need to have muscles of steel to get this to roll out. >> well, i have muscles of steel. >> i know. >> what are you saying? >> but i don't. >> oh, so you have to do that. >> right. all right, and that's good. still looks a little bumpy, but that's fine. all the ingredients have been mixed together, and the gluten has started to form, which is perfect. we're going to cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let this sit and relax at room temperature for about 30 minutes. this dough has been sitting at room temperature. the yeast has started to react, which is good. and we're going to press it into about a ten-by-seven-inch rectangle. we're not rolling yet; we're just gently pressing and stretching. and you don't want to really work up the gluten too much because we're really gonna roll it out a lot later. and that should be good. so now we're going to cover it with plastic wrap. and it's going to rest in the refrigerator and then the freezer for quite a while. and the refrigerator and the freezer do two things: one, they sort of slow down the action of the yeast so you have plenty of time to make croissants without the yeast exploding on you, and

more importantly, it keeps the dough very cold. and when you roll out croissants, you want the dough to feel like cold clay. and so keeping it in the refrigerator for two hours and then the freezer for 30 minutes gets the dough in just the right temperature to start rolling it out. and now, it is time to make our butter packet, because of course we're going to fold the dough around a nice sheet of butter. it's 12 ounces of unsalted butter, and what we're going to do is we're going to pound it... ... with a rolling pin, and this really gets it malleable and workable. we're going to take one sheet and pound the second one onto it, and then this third sheet. now, the interesting thing we learned here when we were doing this in the test kitchen is that it is much easier to do this with european butter. so we're going to pound this until it's malleable. >> now i know why you like this recipe, by the way. >> this is the best part. and the interesting technique that we came up with is-- to make an even square of butter that's even throughout-- is to use a little parchment packet. and this is a piece of parchment that we folded, so... >> how big is the parchment to

start with? >> it's about 12 inches to start with, 12 inches this way and 24 inches this way. what you do is you fold it to make an eight-inch square. and we're going to put the butter inside this eight-inch square, and that'll be sort of our template for how big the butter should be, and it also keeps it nice and protected in the refrigerator until we need it. so we'll fold the sides back up. >> this is kind of like, you know, cooking meets crafts. >> (laughs) origami, yeah. so here we have a nice butter packet. and now with the rolling pin... >> oh, i like this. >> yeah. you can just roll it right to the edges, and make sure it's nice and even. and starting off with a very square shape is really important for even layers. and, of course, it also keeps the butter cold because we haven't actually touched it with our hands. >> that's a good idea. let's talk just a minute about those butters again. now, it turns out that using european-style butters was really crucial to making this recipe, at least making it well. what's the difference? well, european-style butters are 83% butterfat. american-style-- say, land

o'lakes, for example-- is 80%. now, 80% to 83% you don't think is a lot, but flip that around and think about the rest of it. the rest of it's water. so you're going from 20% water down to 17%. that's over a 15% drop in water content. that's really important for two reasons. the first is, water is really good at gluing layers of dough together, so when you bake up a croissant, a little bit of extra water in there, that's going to keep those layers from puffing up and making that nice, flaky croissant. the second thing is that more fat actually makes the dough-- in this case, the butter-- more malleable. that is, a little bit more water, it breaks apart, it's not clay-like, it's not putty-like. so more fat makes it much easier to work with. >> all right, so here we are, ready to merge the dough and the butter. and again, this dough was in the fridge for two hours, then the freezer for 30 minutes. and what we're going to do is we're going to start by rolling it out to a 17-by-eight-inch rectangle. so you can see this dough is nice and firm and quite chilly. it's like clay. and we're going to roll it out.

i have my trusty ruler. in this recipe, you'll have your ruler around a lot to make sure you get the dimensions right, because that's half the battle here. >> the corners... i mean, how do you get the corners squared off? >> you know, that's a really good question. >> i don't know how to do that. >> and i'm going to be doing this a lot using the ruler and just squaring it off. >> so you cheat, in other words. >> that's cheating? >> well no, i mean, you don't do it just with the rolling pin. >> oh no, no. no reason not to use any tool you have to make this a little easier. you know, if your dough starts to warm up or snap back at you, you just fold it up gently and put it in the freezer for, you know, 20 minutes or so and then give it another shot. >> you give it a time out. >> you give it a time out, that's right. i'm being very exact with these measurements because our butter, remember, is in an eight-inch square, so i'm being very careful that this is eight inches. now i'm going to go fetch that butter out of the refrigerator. here is our chilled piece of butter. we're going to put this right in the middle of our dough, and we're going to fold over the sides so that they meet in the

middle, and then we're going to pinch the seam together. now we begin the process of rolling out the butter and the dough together, which really begins to make those layers that multiply pretty quickly. and roll it out until it measures about 24 inches this way and about eight inches this way. all right, so now we're going to seal the butter on either end. you just give it a good press there, at the top and the bottom, and you just kind of go up and down. of course, you want to keep it as even as possible. and if you find the dough sticking at any point, don't hesitate to put flour underneath there. all right, let's see how we're doing. 18... and six. >> perfect. >> pretty perfect. all right, so now we're going to do our first fold. so this is one layer of dough. now, we're going to fold up the bottom.... ... about a third of the way up, like a business letter, brushing off any flour. fold down the top. and that's folded once, and now we have three layers of dough. and now we're going to roll it out again. turn it 90 degrees, a little flour so it doesn't stick, and here we go again, 24-by-eight.

all right, so this guy is perfect at 24-by-eight inches, and now we're going to let it really rest before we do the last turn. we're just going to fold it up gently. we're going to put it back on this little baking sheet, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer for, again, about a half an hour before we do that last turn. all right, our little dough's been resting in the freezer for about 30 minutes... >> now, the first time you rested the first dough, it was two hours in the fridge, a half hour in the freezer. that's because the dough was warm after being made. >> that's right, we really wanted to chill it thoroughly. this time, we're just trying to keep it cold and pliable, and you can see it's now cold again. it feels like that cold clay that we like. so we're going to put it back on the counter. we're going to roll it out again, 24-by-eight. and this is our last and final turn. and this is when the gluten started to build up because of all the rolling, and this is when it could get... a little fight on your hands. don't hesitate to throw it back into the freezer-- it relaxes the gluten and makes it much easier to roll out. all right, so 24-by-eight,

18-inch ruler, plus six, we are good. all right, so we're going to fold this guy up. we're going to give him a long chill again before we roll him out and shape the croissants. again, two hours in the fridge and then another 30 minutes in the freezer. all right, so it's time... >> you're so excited. >> i know, this is fun! so this is our dough. of course, we've turned it three times, which is 27 layers. and now we're going to roll it out to a 16-by-18-inch piece so that we can make the croissants. at this point, there's a lot of gluten built up and it takes a little bit of arm work to get this to the right dimensions. all right, let's see how far we've come. so 18... ...by 14. two more inches to go. all right. 16. >> done. >> so after shaping lots of croissants, we figured out the easiest way is to take the dough and fold it in half, and we're going to measure out three inches along the bottom.

for every three inches, we're going to make a little nick. three, six, nine, 12, 15... we're going to do the same on the top, but we're going to offset it by an inch and a half, of course. so we'll do three, six, nine, 12, 15. >> well, that wasn't enough course for me, but... okay, you'll explain in a second. >> mm-hmm. this way you get nice triangles. and you can use a chef knife, but i think a pizza wheel works the best. we're just going to go from point to point. and you have a little bit of trim on the edges, and then you just connect the dots. there you have it. you can make fun things with these. >> (laughs) like what, christmas tree decorations? >> yeah, or little palmiers or cookies or something. >> okay. >> and then, of course, some of these, half of them, are nice and perfectly ready to be shaped into croissants, because you're looking for that triangle shape, but every other one will be a diamond.

so we'll simply open up the diamonds and cut them in half in the middle so that we can then shape them into pretty croissants. a little notch on the top. >> yeah. >> then you pick it up, you kind of stretch out the end like that, and you stretch long... and then you lay it down. and you fold it over and you roll... and then at the end, i sort of pick it up and roll it around. >> (bad french accent): i think mine is better-looking than yours. >> (giggles) yours is good. >> now what do i do? >> now we put them on the baking sheet and you can curve the edges. >> see, i did it! >> very nice. we're going to do one more, and of course we're going to keep doing these, and do these in batches. now, this recipe makes 22 croissants, which is a good amount because if you're going to go through all this trouble, why not put them in the freezer? and we're only going to bake off 12, and those are panned up here. we're going to let those sit at

room temperature until they almost double in size, and that's two to three hours. >> so how long can you keep these in the freezer? >> about two months. and so what we're going to do is i'm going to freeze these until they're solid. so i'm going to cover these with plastic and put them in the freezer until they're good and firm, and then you can sort of condense them into a zipper-lock bag. all right, so into the freezer these go, and again, we're going to let those sit on the counter for about two to three hours. all right, you can see these have really bloomed there, and they're nice and pudgy, and they're perfect for baking. now we're going to give them a little bit of an egg wash. and this is egg with a tablespoon of water and just a pinch of salt. you don't have to be perfect with the egg wash. it can get on the parchment paper, and that's fine. you do want to coat all the dough that's exposed. all right, so these guys are now ready for the oven, and i have the oven preheating at 425 degrees. i have them on the upper-middle and lower-middle racks. i'm going to turn the oven down to 400 degrees, so you heat the oven just a little bit higher so you make sure you get that oven spring, and you don't lose any heat when you open the door. so they're going to bake in that 400-degree oven for about 20 to

25 minutes, and we're going to switch the racks and rotate them halfway through. oh, i love that smell. >> they look fabulous. >> aren't they gorgeous? all right. grab this too. thank you for helping with the oven door. pull the croissants out and just put them right on the rack and let them cool for about 15 minutes. all right, they have cooled for long enough. it's time to dig in. that's your tray, this is my tray. >> oh yeah? >> look at those layers. you can really see how they stacked up against one another. >> ooh, look at that. >> yeah. >> mm. >> (sighs happily) i love unraveling it as you go. you get the doughy insides and that crisp outside. >> this was worth your time and effort. >> it was. >> and i got the best job in the house because i got to stand here and watch you make them. these are really, really excellent. the secret to a great croissant is actually follow the directions. this is one of those times when you have to get the measurements right, you've got to chill the

dough properly. a european-style butter, which is 83% butterfat, is definitely much, much better than using american-style butter. and the other thing you really have to do is use king arthur all-purpose flour. it has just the right protein content, makes it easier to roll out, but also gives it structure. so there you have it, from america's test kitchen to your kitchen, a fabulous recipe-- not easy, but a foolproof recipe-- for fabulous homemade croissants. >> hi, this is julia child with a tip on making these little thin french pancakes called crêpes. >> in her lifetime, julia child must have made thousands of crêpes. she did it so many times she could probably do it in her sleep. take the batter, have the nice preheated pan-- she had the nice wrist thing going where she could coat the pan-- and then two minutes later, she had perfect crêpes. >> this is julia child. bon appetit. >> for me, it's different. what's the ratio of flour to milk? should you let the batter rest? what kind of pan to use? is the pan preheated? how do you flip it? i have no idea. in fact, this is what i get: undercooked crêpes or overcooked

crêpes. so let's go into the test kitchen with becky and figure out a foolproof method for making perfect crêpes every time. you know, in the last few years, a lot of kids have been watching america's test kitchen, and one of them had a mother who wrote in and said, "my daughter abby, age six"-- there we go-- "is an early riser like me, and we often watch tivo'd episodes of america's test kitchen before daddy wakes up." smart daddy. "she thinks bridget, julia, and becky are very nice to teach chris how to cook." >> (laughs) smart little girl! >> so thank you very much for teaching me how to cook. i appreciate it. so today you're going to teach me how to cook crêpes. rule number one: heat the pan properly. i have a skillet that's already been heating, and i have half a teaspoon of vegetable oil in the pan. i'd like it to heat for about ten minutes on low heat. if you just get going right away and start making your crêpes, they're likely to get spotty brown, there may be holes in them-- it's all because the

pan wasn't properly heated. so while the pan is heating, we can get started on the batter. and i have a cup of all-purpose flour, a quarter-teaspoon of salt, and just a teaspoon of sugar to give it a little bit of sweetness. and almost all crêpe batters are the same. there's not much variation at all in the ingredients. because there's a very high liquid-to-flour ratio in this recipe, the type of flour doesn't make really any difference. >> it doesn't have time to form gluten. >> no, and even if you really whip this batter very vigorously, still you won't overwork it and... >> so this is an idiot-proof recipe. nothing matters, right? so far, anyway. >> that's right, even you can make it. >> this is great. >> and now we'll mix together the liquid ingredients. so i have three eggs and a cup and a half of whole milk. so there's our milk and our eggs. we'll add half of that to our flour. i'm just adding half at a time to make sure the batter becomes perfectly smooth. and then two tablespoons of melted butter. >> so do we have to be gentle here, or can we be cloddish,

like me? >> no, you don't need to be gentle. in fact, a lot of recipes even call for making the batter in a blender. it's impossible to overwork the gluten because there's so much liquid in this recipe. so you don't need to be delicate, you can just go for it. that was easy, right? okay, so there's our batter. rule number two: we're going to test the skillet to make sure that it's come up to the proper temperature. first, i'll wipe out this excess oil. i just want to make sure i get a little film on the sides of the pan. and then i had the heat on low for 10 minutes. i'm going to turn it up to medium and we'll leave it on medium for a minute. it's a good idea to have a timer. it's so important to make sure that your pan's at the proper temperature, because if it's not, we have some examples here of what could happen. those were clearly made in a pan that was too cool. >> you think? >> did you make those? (laughs) >> no, i didn't, not yet. >> those aren't going to have any flavor, because there's no browning. in this example, the pan was too hot, and you see you get holes. >> sort of referred to as giraffe crêpe. that's what they look like. (timer beeps) >> there's our timer. it's been a minute.

so now i'll take a teaspoon of batter and just put it in the center of the skillet. my timer again... >> are you sure that isn't, like, too much batter? the french are frugal, you know, so... >> so i'm timing 20 seconds, and then we'll flip it. ta-da! that's what we're looking for. >> perfect. join becky in our new show next season, cooking for little people. >> we'll let the pan just come back up for about ten seconds, and we're ready to go. rule number three: add the right amount of batter. so i'm adding a quarter cup of batter to a 12-inch skillet. if you add too little batter, of course, it's not going to spread out thin enough. if you add too much, your crepe will be too thick. i'm just twirling the pan around, shaking it a little bit. put that on the fire. it'll take about 20 or 25 seconds. so the last rule is knowing when to flip this thing. you want the surface of the crêpe to be nice and dry. (timer beeps) that's 20 seconds. it'll take 20 or 25 seconds. and you want to see a little bit of browning just starting to happen around the edges, which we can see right there. just loosen... then we can use our hands to flip it. and now it'll take another 20

seconds on this side. >> okay. >> so that's been just about 20 seconds. flip that guy out. so, rule number one: heat the pan properly. rule number two: test the skillet to make sure that it's come up to the proper temperature. rule number three: use the proper amount of batter. rule number four is knowing when to flip this thing. and you want to see a little bit of browning just starting to happen around the edges. and you want to put it on the rack so that the air can circulate, because as we make these, we don't want them to stick. and then i set up a whole crêpe bar for us. >> you know, let's do bananas. >> bananas, with a little nutella on there too? >> i'm just, you know... >> you can't go wrong with that. just fold it over. >> well, it looks good. >> oh, so good. fold it in quarters. >> mmm, really good. >> this is the best dessert. they're nice and tender, just a little sweet, you can have fun with all the fillings. these are so good. >> so it turns out there are no rules about crêpe making and there are lots of rules about crêpe making. the batter itself, you know, it didn't matter the flour, whisk it, let it rest, none of that really mattered. what did matter was the actual

cooking. test with just a teaspoon of batter, make sure it browns nicely. use a quarter cup-- that's two ounces. not too much or too little. and finally, don't flip the crêpe until it's exactly right, it's nicely browned and the top is nice and dry. and there you have it, from america's test kitchen to your kitchen, a foolproof recipe for homemade crêpes. you can get this recipe, all the recipes from this season of america's test kitchen, our tastings, our testings, you can watch selected episodes at our website, americastestkitchentv.com, and also, follow us on twitter if you like, or facebook, or both. >> let us help with dinner tonight. visit our website anytime for free access to this season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings, or to watch current season episodes. log onto americastestkitchentv.com. >> our companion cookbook includes every recipe, taste test, and equipment rating from this season of america's test kitchen, as well as helpful tips and techniques.

the cost is $29.95, five dollars less than the cover price. you'll also receive this four dvd set, a $39.95 value, featuring all 26 episodes from this season at no additional charge. to order, call 1-800-888-3384, or order online at americastestkitchentv.com. >> america's test kitchen is brought to you by dcs by fisher & paykel. america's cooks rely on innovation and culinary precision. dcs by fisher & paykel, offering premium indoor and outdoor kitchen appliances. >> and by kohler, inspiring home chefs to create a professional- level kitchen with innovative sinks, faucets, and cook centers. >> and by diamond crystal salt, for the professional chef and those who want to cook like one. diamond crystal, the gourmet choice. by cooking.com, an online retailer for the kitchen

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