Now that I’m up to my 41st cook book, it’s getting harder to remember what I have and haven’t cooked from. I’m really going to need to get some check list going on before I accidentally repeat one. This battered and bruised one was definitely one I hadn’t cooked from before. It’s a more recent addition to the collection. My dad has suddenly decided that every time he sees a Woman’s Day/Woman’s Weekly book in the op shop he’s going to get it for me, regardless of quality. There’s no date on this book, but the fact it boasts being printed in colour on the cover gives you some notion of how old it is.

Unsurprisingly it’s filled with all the classics. Many of which I’d tried, or tried some variation of, when I first started learning how to bake. It was difficult to find something I hadn’t baked before, until I came across the Yeasted Breads chapter. Being rather new to bread making, there’s quite a number of things I’m yet to try. Most of those on offer were basic breads, crumpets or muffins. But I eventually settled on the croissants. They’re something I absolutely love, have always intended to make at home, but just never got around to it. The cook book challenge is always the perfect opportunity to scratch another off of my list.

Matching the books age are many of the ingredients in a lot of the recipes, not to mention the methods. My first obstacle was obtaining fresh yeast. It’s not something that’s readily available in supermarkets here any more and usually requires a special trip to obtain. After confirming that all my local supermarkets were clear of it, I opted to substitute dried yeast instead. 10g of dried yeast is enough for this recipe if you have to sub it, too (the substitution ratio is usually about 3:1).

The first step is always proofing the yeast. Your water needs to be around the 30°C mark. You can get accurate if you need, but I always do the wrist test: if the proofing liquid burns to touch then it will kill your yeast. Make it a comfortable temp for you and your yeast will be happy. Cover the yeast and let it do it’s thing for 5-10 minutes – if it gets foamy (and you can smell the yeast) then you’re all good to go.

Add it, and the egg to your flour mixture and get ready for some steady arm work.

There’s no indication in the recipe about how long to knead the dough for or what signs to look for. I went for the typical: kept going until it was smooth and elastic. The dough starts out really firm, so it took a good 10 minutes of kneading to get it feeling right.

This procedure is a lot quicker than most other croissant recipes I’ve seen. It requires much lest resting and the laminating technique is more akin to a rough puff or flaky pastry. You roll your dough out into a long rectangle and dot it with butter (I was pretty lazy and didn’t cut the butter up into small squares, but if you change direction when rolling it out it doesn’t matter).

Fold the butter up into a little blanket and roll out to repeat the process.