Hey everybody! Are you having a fun weekend? Or are you grinding through your “to do” list? We are doing both!

The length and near constant re-ordering of our list is almost entirely my fault. The item below has languished for far too long and made the list before we even had the laser. Take a look.

I found the hammered brass pulls and instantly loved them. The top was bought at Lowes.

So what to do?

I’m so happy with this result. The eyesore is gone and now it looks as nice as it is functional. I have so much kitchen gear and I use it all.

Now for the bonus. If you aren’t interested in an update to the croissant journey feel free to exit here. But if you want to feast your eyes on magazine worthy croissants, press on!

Cameron spent the past two weeks sleuthing what went wrong during the proofing process two weeks ago and the root cause of the lamination collapse. If you don’t know my husband professionally you haven’t seen him in analysis mode. The man slices and dices, runs through different angles and possible points of failure, tests his hypotheses and then finds a way to accurately measure and duplicate the results of his hypotheses until he zeros in on the answer. This is his wheel house and he loves problem solving. Would you believe the heat from the lights in the oven was a primary culprit? And how does he know?

After a few days of experimenting with the oven and different sizes of warm water vessels he figured out what combination of elements he needed to achieve the ideal proofing temperature. Croissant dough is the Goldilocks of doughs. A degree or two under and you don’t get the full proofing you need for dough expansion during the bake. A degree or two over and your butter bleeds out, collapsing your lamination.

At this point I would have been thrilled to pieces with myself, but not Cameron. His quibbles are with the openness of the internal honeycomb structure and the fact that the layers didn’t entirely adhere to each other. The outsides were so flaky and the insides so buttery and tender. He says they were still a touch dense but of course he compares his croissants to those of professional pastry chefs who teach all over the world. He isn’t ready to call it a success, so there will be a third installment, at least, of this saga!

How did they taste? He used a different recipe this time and I didn’t think this batch was a flavorful as the first. More salt, and a touch more sugar in my opinion but, every palate is different. They were still very good relative to flavor and obviously superior structurally and texturally relative to the first batch. To be continued!

Thank you for your interest and enthusiasm; we are happy that you’re a part of our adventures!

Dana