Croissants aux Amandes (Twice Baked Almond Croissants)
Croissants aux amandes. This directly translates to almond croissants and they are divine.
My family absolutely loves Costco. We get probably 90% of our groceries from there. It’s also so fun to go there just to get all the free samples. For those of you who don’t know, Costco has a bakery and they sell freshly made items all the time. One of the popular items they sell are croissants. They are these GIANT croissants that come in a pack of 12. To be honest, the croissants are pretty high quality for being mass produced from a big manufacturer. They are a little soft but they are SO buttery. I used croissants from Costco for this recipe, but you can use any day-old croissants.
Where did the idea of using stale croissants even come from? Well, croissants unfortunately have a VERY short shelf life. After a day, they basically go bad; they get dry and hard. It is a problem for us now, and it has long been a problem for French bakers in France. What do you do with stale croissants? Bakers can’t sell croissants that are stale and it’s a waste, so they came up with ways to use them. One way to use them is by covering them with a syrup, filling them with frangipane, and baking them for a second time. The croissants turn out to be sweet and soft, full with almond flavor and crunchy from almond slivers baked on top. They are absolute perfection and for added bonus, they make your house smell AMAZING!! These are easy enough to whip up in the morning for breakfast, and they would work great served as a snack or even for dessert!
Frangipane is a dreamy, creamy spreadable paste that consists of almond flour, almond extract, eggs, butter, and sugar. It is used most commonly in baked goods, such as bostock and tarts.
When I created the video for this post I was sure I knew how I wanted to incorporate science!
But I wanted to go into more depth on this page for people who are more curious like me! While your croissants are baking in the oven you may want to read this!
Well, to start with the basics we need to understand what starch is. Starch molecules are made up of hundreds of sugar (glucose) units. Starch is found in bread, and in our case in the croissants. Starch is made up of two carbohydrates: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is linear shaped and amylopectin is branched. When you bake bread, amylose molecules create a network with water through a process called starch gelation. Once cooled, this network is strong and holds the shape of the bread. When the temperature of bread drops, which starts immediately after the bread is removed from the oven, the amylose molecules associate with other amylose molecules instead of with water molecules like they did before. This leads to crystallization and the amylose crystals create a stale texture. In addition, because amylose stops interacting with water, the water molecules can leave the bread dry.
This similarly happens to the other carbohydrate, amylopectin. The whole complex procedure I described above has a name, retrogradation. Overall, the result is stale bread and loss of moisture.
Heating up the stale croissants allows amylopectin and amylose to move again and break their crystal structures; however, the process will repeat again after the croissants cool down.
Now, you can tell your friends that stale bread doesn’t just happen because it simply dried out. There are a whole lot of other things going on!
Happy Baking! As always, remember… whenever you’re in the kitchen, you’re not only a baker, but a chemist too!
- 4
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
For the Almond Simple Syrup:
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup water
For the Frangipane:
- 4 stale croissants (or if you have fresh ones, let them sit out overnight)
- 3 tablespoon salted butter softened
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup almond flour
For the Garnish:
- ¼ - ½ cup flaked almonds
- powdered sugar
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and water and heat until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl.
- In a medium bowl, cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in the eggs, vanilla, almond extract and stir to combine.
- Next, add in the almond flour and use a spatula to incorporate the mixture.
- Transfer the frangipane filling to a piping bag with a round piping tip (I used Wilton No. 12).
- Slice the croissants in half lengthwise.
- Brush the sugar syrup on the insides of each croissant.
- Pipe on about ¼ of the mixture on one half of the croissant in a zigzag motion. (Leave about 2 tablespoon of the filling for piping on the tops.) Then, place the top back on.
- With the remaining frangipane, pipe about ½ tablespoon onto the top of each croissant.
- Sprinkle/coat the top with flaked almonds using the frangipane as adhesive.
- Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the filling is baked through. (Place a piece of foil to cover at around 15 minutes if the tops are browning too quickly.)
- Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before dusting with powdered sugar.
- Now, enjoy!
Notes
This recipe is adapted from https://www.siftandsimmer.com/easy-double-baked-almond-croissants/
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