Французский круассан: история и технология выпечки

Flaky, crescent shaped pastry

A croissant (/UK/'/k//r//w//ʌ//s//ɒ̃//, /'/k//r//w//æ//s//ɒ̃/, /US//k//r//ə/'/s//ɒ//n//t//, //k//r//w//ɑː/'/s//ɒ̃/; kʁwasɑ̃) is a French pastry made from puff pastry in a crescent shape. It is a buttery, flaky, viennoiserie pastry inspired by the shape of the Austrian kipferl, but using the French yeast leavened laminated dough. Croissants are named for their historical crescent shape. The dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a thin sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry. Crescent shaped breads have been made since the Renaissance, and crescent shaped cakes possibly since antiquity. The modern croissant was developed in the early 20th century, when French bakers replaced the brioche dough of the kipferl with a yeast leavened laminated dough. In the late 1970s, the development of factory made, frozen, preformed but unbaked dough made them into a fast food that could be freshly baked by unskilled labor. The croissant bakery, notably the La Croissanterie chain, was a French response to American style fast food, and as of 2008, 30–40% of the croissants sold in French bakeries and patisseries were baked from frozen dough. Croissants are a common part of a continental breakfast in many European countries and served as dessert all around the world.

Stories of how the kipferl — sometimes confused with the croissant — was created are widespread and persistent culinary legends, going back to the 19th century. However, there are no contemporary sources for any of these stories, and an aristocratic writer, writing in 1799, does not mention the kipferl in a long and extensive list of breakfast foods. The legends include tales that it was invented in Europe to celebrate the defeat of the Umayyad forces by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732, with the shape representing the Islamic crescent; that it was invented in Buda; or, according to other sources, in Vienna in 1683 to celebrate the defeat of the Ottomans by Christian forces in the siege of the city, as a reference to the crescents on the Ottoman flags, when bakers staying up all night heard the tunneling operation and gave the alarm. According to one of a group of similar legends, which vary only in detail, a baker of the 17th century, working through the night at a time when his city (either Vienna in 1683 or Budapest in 1686) was under siege by the Turks, heard faint underground rumbling sounds which, on investigation, proved to be caused by a Turkish attempt to invade the city by tunneling under the walls. The tunnel was blown up. The baker asked no reward other than the exclusive right to bake crescent shaped pastries commemorating the incident, the crescent being the symbol of Islam. He was duly rewarded in this way, and the croissant was born. The story seems to owe its origin, or at least its wide diffusion, to Alfred Gottschalk, who wrote about the croissant for the first edition of the Larousse Gastronomique (1938) and there gave the legend in the 'Turkish attack on Budapest in 1686' version; but who subsequently, in his own book (1948) on the history of food, opted for the 'siege of Vienna in 1683' version.||Oxford Companion to Food|source=s. v. Culinary mythology, Origin of the croissant

For this reason, the Islamic State attempted to ban croissants during the Syrian civil war.

Uncooked croissant dough can also be wrapped around any praline, almond paste, or chocolate before it is baked (in the last case, it becomes like pain au chocolat, which has a different, non crescent, shape), or sliced to include sweet or savoury fillings. It may be flavored with dried fruit such as sultanas or raisins, or other fruits such as apples. In France and Spain, croissants are generally sold without filling and eaten without added butter, but sometimes with almond filling. In the United States, sweet fillings or toppings are sometimes used, and warm croissants may be filled with ham and cheese, or feta cheese and spinach. In the Levant, croissants are sold plain or filled with chocolate, cheese, almonds, or zaatar. In Germany, croissants are sometimes filled with Nutella or persipan; in southern Germany, there is also a popular variety of a croissant glazed with lye (Laugencroissant). In the German speaking part of Switzerland, the croissant is typically called a Gipfeli; this usually has a crisper crust and is less buttery than the French style croissant.

Croissants are commonly served alongside coffee for breakfast, aperitivo (a light mid morning meal), or merienda (a mid afternoon meal). They are referred to as medialunas ("half moons") because of their shape and are typically coated with a sweet glaze (medialunas de manteca, "half moons of butter"). Another variant is a medialuna de grasa ("half moon of lard"), which is not always sweet.

A cousin of the croissant is the Italian cornetto (in the center and south) or brioche (in the north). These variants are often considered to be the same, but that is not completely true: the French version tends to be crispy, whereas an Italian cornetto or brioche is usually softer. Furthermore, the cornetto vuoto is commonly accompanied by variants with filling, which include crema pasticciera (custard), apricot jam or chocolate cream. They often come covered with powdered sugar or other toppings. Cornetto with cappuccino at the bar is one of the most common breakfasts in Italy.

On 11 November, St. Martin's Day is celebrated in the Polish region of Greater Poland, mainly in its capital city Poznań. On this day, the people of Poznań purchase and eat considerable amounts of sweet, crescent shaped pastries called rogale świętomarcińskie ("St. Martin's croissants"). They are made specially for this occasion from puff pastry filled with ground white poppy seeds, almonds, raisins, and nuts.

The first type of Portuguese croissant is similar to the French, and can be plain or filled with custard, chocolate, fruit jam, or a typical Portuguese cream made of egg yolk and sugar, "doce de ovo". It is customary for these to also have powdered sugar on top. The second version has a similar consistency to brioche and is commonly eaten with ham and cheese. Sometimes this type is also served like toast, with a spread of butter. While the first type of croissant is considered sweet and is eaten during breakfast or tea, the second type is a more filling meal and is usually considered a sandwich and often prepared for picnics or as travel food. Both types share the same name (French/Portuguese: "croissant") but are typically found in different bakeries: the sweet croissant is more commonly found in Portuguese pâtisseries and the brioche croissant is usually found in coffeehouses.

Besides the regular croissant, a variation called Xuixos is sold. It is half of a croissant, usually stuffed with cream.

A pastry with croissant shape is the Turkish ay çöreği. It is filled with cinnamon, walnut, hazelnut, cacao and raisin. Its rectangular shape variant is known as pastiç or İzmir çöreği. It is generally eaten during breakfast or with tea.

The first step of manufacturing croissants is the "predough" formation. To prepare predough, flour, water, in dough fat, yeast, salt, and sugar are mixed together in a single step. In comparison to the mixing of bread dough ingredients, pastry predough is considered underdeveloped in that mixing is stopped as soon as the dough appears homogeneous, to allow for further dough development in the next step. The role of proteins can be divided into two stages of dough formation: hydration and deformation. In the hydration stage, gluten proteins absorb water up to two times their own weight. In the deformation or kneading stage, the action of mixing causes the gluten to undergo a series of polymerization and depolymerization reactions, forming a viscoelastic network. Hydrated glutenin proteins in particular help form a polymeric protein network that makes the dough more cohesive. On the other hand, hydrated gliadin proteins do not directly form the network, but do act as plasticizers of the glutenin network, thus imparting fluidity to the dough’s viscosity. Starch also affects the viscosity of predough. At room temperature and in a sufficient amount of water, intact starch granules can absorb water up to 50% of their own dry weight, causing them to swell to a limited extent. The slightly swollen granules are found in the spaces between the gluten network, thus contributing to the consistency of the dough. The granules may not be intact, as the process of milling wheat into flour damages some of the starch granules. Given that damaged starch granules have the capacity to absorb around three times as much water as undamaged starch, the use of flour with higher levels of damaged starch requires the addition of more water to achieve optimal dough development and consistency. Secondly, cold water is comparable to the temperature of the roll in fat to be added later, which better facilitates the latter’s incorporation. The resulting interconnections between different dough layers would over increase dough strength and allow water vapor to escape through micropores during baking, consequently decreasing dough lift. The role of fat also influences the separation of layers, as will be discussed next. Roll in fat affects the flakiness and flavor of the croissant. In laminated dough, fat layers alternate with dough layers. As such, the most important function of roll in fat is to form and maintain a barrier between the different dough layers during sheeting and folding. While butter is appealing due to its high consumer acceptance, its low melting point, 32 °C (90 °F), actually makes it undesirable for production purposes. The use of butter as roll in fat during the lamination step will cause problems of oiling out during sheeting and fermentation if the temperature is not tightly controlled, thus disrupting the integrity of the layers. At the same time, the roll in fat should have plasticity comparable to that of the dough, such that the fat layers do not break during sheeting and folding. This process releases energy that is used by the yeast for growth. After consuming all of the oxygen, the yeast switches to anaerobic fermentation. At this point, the yeast partially breaks down sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide. Once saturates the dough’s aqueous phase, the gas begins to leaven the dough by diffusing to preexisting gas cells that were incorporated into the predough during mixing. In order to ensure the flaky texture of the croissant, it is important to balance the yeast activity with steam production. If the yeast overproduces , then the well defined layers may collapse. At higher temperatures, intermolecular disulfide bonds form between glutenin molecules, as well as between gliadin and glutenin. With more bonds being made, the gluten network becomes more rigid, strengthening the croissant’s crumb texture. Additionally, the baking process significantly stretches the dough layers due to the large macroscopic deformation that occurred during fermentation’s dough lift. The fat phase also contributes to dough lift through gas inflation, which will be described next. Water is converted to steam during the baking process, which is the main factor behind the leavening of the dough. The water for steam production comes from both the dough layers and the roll in fat. As the fat melts, the continuous oil phase is no longer able to stabilize the water droplets, which are then released and converted to steam. Although the exact mechanism of steam entrapment is still unclear, it is likely a result of both steam expanding inside each dough layer and steam migrating to oil layers, where it inflates gas bubbles. The steam migration to oil phase is likely due to the smaller pressure differential required to inflate a bubble of steam in liquid fat than in solid dough. Starch plays a major role in the degradation of croissants during storage. Amylopectin retrogradation occurs over several days to weeks, as amorphous amylopectin chains are realigned into a more crystalline structure. The result of this redistribution of water is a firming up of the croissant, caused by a decrease in starch plasticity and an increase in gluten network rigidity. Due to the presence of large pores in croissants, moisture is lost to the environment at a faster rate than bread products. As such, croissants generally become harder in texture at a faster rate than breads. Fat also affects the quality of croissants in storage. On one hand, an increased amount of in dough fat has been found to correspond to a reduction in crumb hardness immediately after baking. This is likely attributed to the high fat content of croissants, as increased fat levels decrease moisture diffusion. On the other hand, although roll in fat softens the croissant’s initial crumb, its effect on croissant hardness during storage is still unclear.