Cooking: A Tale of Croissants and Cronuts

My husband has long wished that I would try my hand at making cronuts ever since he heard about the extra-rich-cousin-of-the-donut.  So finally for Valentine's day I decided to fulfill his wish - and I'll admit I was a bit curious.  I decided to kill two birds with one stone by making a double batch of croissant dough and using a little for cronuts, and the rest for croissants at Sunday dinner.  The result?  Awfully rich, but quite tasty.  Will I make them again?  Maybe, but probably no more frequently that once a year.  I'm not a big deep-fat-frying fan, but occasionally I'll make apple fritters, donuts, or funnel cake.  But deep fat-frying is just to heavy and greasy for me to do more than 4 times a year or so.  At any rate, here's the recipe that began my cronut adventure:

Croissants (Trish’s Aunt Nina’s Recipe)

3/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

Mix, place on plastic wrap.  Cover and roll out to be 4”x 10”. Chill.

1 pkg. Yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 Tbsp. Sugar

Mix together and let stand 5 minutes.

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

2 Tbsp. Sugar

1 tsp. Salt

Beat and add to yeast mixture. 
3 (approx.) cups flour.  Mix in until dough leaves sides of bowl.

Roll out to 12” square.  Place butter in center, fold both sides over.  Roll out, turn 90 degrees, fold over in thirds again.  Repeat rolling and turning process 2 more times.  Wrap in plastic and chill overnight or 6-8 hours.  Cut in half and roll into a 12” circle.  Cut into 8 wedges and roll up into crescents.  Repeat with other half of dough. Let raise 30-45 minutes.  Bake at 375 for 15-20 min.

I rolled the dough out about 1/3 inch thick, cut them out (using two sizes of heart cookie cutters)  then let them raise in a slightly warm oven for about 20 minutes.

Fried them in canola oil that was heated to 375 degrees F.  A minute or so each side.

Let them drain on paper towel.

Once slightly cooled, dipped them in maple glaze (powdered sugar, evaporated milk, a little water and some maple flavoring)

Strung them on a metal skewer to drain.

Let them dry on a baking rack.

Final product.

Entertaining: Valentine's Day Jello Adventures

Ok, so I'm not a huge gelatin fan, but on holiday it makes for a festive edible-craft that kids love. I saw an idea for Jell-o valentine "envelopes" and then took it a step further. (The white layer is 1 pkg. gelatin+1/4 cup water mixed into 3/4 cup boiling water + 1/2 can sweetened condensed milk)

I ended up with heart-shaped holes in my raspberry Jello.

So I decided to whip up some more creamy gelatin (you could easily mix in yogurt instead of sweetened condensed milk) and carefully fill my heart-shaped holes.  I used a kitchen syringe.

If you spill, no worries - just blot with a paper towel.  Now I have a festive addition to our Valentine's day dinner meal, while still enjoying some festive food earlier in the week. 

I truly believe that making an effort to have a little culinary fun will inspire your kids later on to express their creativity in the kitchen.