Croissants, again.

Today, I had a third attempt at croissants.  This attempt was far worse than the previous two.  This time, I used plain flour (roasted, beforehand.  20 minutes in oven at 180 degress C) and 25% butter, rather than 50%.  (Around 50% butter to 100% flour, weight for weight, is normal for croissants, but puff pastry is usually around 25-35 % butter, so I thought that until I had the technique right, I may as well cut down on my butter usage. However this may have contributed to the failure.)

On the bright side, the croissant dough did rise into distinct "layers", but on the downside they didn't rise much.  Certainly the resulting croissants were not what you could call "light".  Where the croissants had risen, the pastry had either unravelled or split, owing to lack of gluten.  (Firstly from the use of plain flour, secondly due to the roasting of the plain flour).

From now on, I will be sticking to strong white bread flour for croissants, even if it is more difficult to roll out. (Yes, I am still using a roll of clingfilm as a rolling pin, due to being a student, and a disorganised one at best.  However I have ordered one from Amazon).   And 50% butter, even though half of it seems to leak out during the cooking process.

I think that I may have also made the mistake for using salted butter for all attempts.  Even though I cook frequently, I rarely buy unsalted butter; there was no need to since everything seemed to have worked out adequately with salted butter.  However it seems possible that the extra salt in the butter may be having a detrimental effect upon the yeast - something which I had never previously considered in breadmaking (probably because most bread recipes do not require this amount of butter!)  As before, pictures of failures are not worth posting... but as soon as I work out the perfect croissant recipe and technique, I will post it on here for all to use (and so that I never forget it!). 

Achieving any form of lightness is still eluding me, I'm resorting to looking at the ingredients on pre-made croissants, to see what I can reasonably improve upon.

Also today, I was considering the use of liqueurs as flavoring in yeasted doughs, however I'm not entirely sure how they would affect yeast action and rising time.  Would it be the equivalent to adding a lot of sugar?  Guess there's only one way to find out...