Put the active dry yeast in a small bowl. Add the warm water (should be warm to the touch, but not hot) and a pinch of coconut sugar. Give it a quick stir just to combine. Let it sit on the counter about 5 minutes. It should get a small amount of foam that shows you the yeast is still alive/active. If the yeast doesn’t change at all, you will want to start over using new yeast. This is why water temperature is important, too hot can kill the yeast but too cold won’t activate the yeast. Water that is warm to the touch should be perfect.
Put the flour in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the flour, and add the yeast mixture. Add the remaining coconut sugar, the almond milk, the 2 tbsp. of melted Miyoko’s butter, and salt. Stir to combine until a sticky dough forms. Rest this dough in the fridge for about half an hour. Once it has rested, you will roll it out into an 8 inch square. To do this, start by sprinkling flour on the countertop. Next put the dough in a ball on this floured surface and sprinkle the ball with flour. Pat the ball into a square-ish shape. Now roll it out, using a rolling pin (or wine bottle), and in between each roll-out use your hands to push the dough back into a square-ish shape. In this manner, the ball turns into a cube and then slowly into a thinner square. Stop when you have approximately 8 inches on each side. At this point, you can wrap the dough tightly with plastic wrap or beeswax wrap and put back into the fridge while you make the beurrage.
To make the beurrage you will pound your butter into a 6-inch square. To do this, get a piece of parchment paper and, using a pencil and ruler, draw a 6-inch square on the paper. Then, put the paper, pencil side down, on the counter (this way the pencil marks won’t touch the butter but you can see them through the paper). Cut the block of butter in half to make two slabs. Place these slabs on the parchment paper inside of the 6-inch square that you drew. You may need to cut the slabs into more than two pieces to fit them into the square, this is totally fine. Now, fold the parchment paper at the pencil marks so the extra paper (that is not the 6-inch square) creates an envelope around the butter. You will use this to help guide you in beating the butter into a 6-inch square shape. Next, use the rolling pin (or wine bottle) to gently hit the butter until it fills up the empty space thus creating a 6-inch square. Once the butter has spread to the edges of the envelope (aka is at a 6-inch square shape, but probably bumpy) keep the parchment paper envelope and now gently roll the butter slab to even it out into a 6-inch square of consistent thickness. Refrigerate your beurrage aka slab of butter for about half an hour.
Next we will describe how to put the dough and butter together and roll it out. We found it helpful to watch How to Make Proper Croissants Completely by Hand. We will describe the process below as well, and give you time markers for applicable parts of the video. Starting at 5 minutes and 57 seconds and ending at 8 minutes and 57 seconds will walk you through the next two paragraphs. Note: in this video there is a lot of attention to detail on having the perfect square however the croissants don’t actually need perfection to be delicious and delightful.
Flour the counter. Take your dough out of the fridge, and place it on the counter like a diamond, with a corner toward you. Carefully roll the corners out to stretch them just a bit, and then roll gently to flatten the whole diamond. Unwrap your slab of butter and place it so that the corners of the butter are in the middle of each side of the dough. Fold the corners over the butter so that all four corners meet in an x-shape over the butter. Pinch to seal the edges. Now wait for about 2 minutes so that the butter softens enough that when you roll it out it won’t break apart.
Now you will roll and do your first turn. First, add a bit of flour to the dough and butter packet to keep the rolling pin from sticking to the dough. Next, gently tap and rock your rolling pin (or wine bottle) over the surface of the dough and butter slab packet, first in one direction and then in the other. Then, using long, single direction strokes, roll the dough and butter slab packet out until you have an 18-inch long rectangle. Fold the end closer to you up the rectangle about 3/4 of the way. Fold the end that is further from you to meet the first end. Then fold the nearer end to the further end. Gently tap the dough to bind the layers. Rest in the fridge for one hour. After an hour, remove the dough from fridge and repeat this entire process, but in the opposite direction. When you get to the part where you fold the dough, this time you will only fold the dough in thirds. Wrap the dough again, put it in the fridge, and refrigerate overnight.
Roll the dough into a rectangle 8-inches by 25-inches. Cut into triangles 8-inches in height and 4-inches along the shortest side. Roll the triangle not too tightly (because it needs room to rise). Optionally, you can at this point and curve them slightly into the traditional croissant shape. Place on a sheet pan lined with a Silpat. This section can be seen in the video starting at 10 minutes and 58 seconds. Note that he is making his croissants larger than ours, so use our measurements above but you can check the video for some technique tricks. This section of the video ends at 13 minutes and 11 seconds.
Let the croissants rise on the counter until they are slightly bigger, fluffier, and softer. They have a bit of a ‘jiggle’ to them at this point. If you don’t let them rise all the way some of the butter will melt out onto your baking sheet as they bake (the croissants will still be delicious). This process takes about an hour. Preheat the oven to 425 F about 40 minutes into the rise. If your kitchen is cold, allow longer for the rising and start the heating of the oven a bit later.
If you are using powdered coconut milk, mix about 1 tbsp of powder with 2 tbsp water. Once the croissants have risen very carefully brush their tops with coconut wash, being careful not to push any air out of the newly risen croissants in the process. Once the oven is fully heated, bake the croissants on the center rack for 15 minutes. Make sure to turn the cookie sheet halfway through the baking process. Be careful, it is easy to leave them in a few more minutes to brown and they can easily burn on the bottom. Let cool before enjoying!
