Well, here we are. Bake day. And it landed on the Fourth of July, so let’s make something beautiful today. 🇺🇸 Most of you have your dough or your butter blocks resting in the fridge right now, which means the hard part is behind you. Today’s the payoff. We shape, we proof, we bake. Here’s the game plan: 🥐 Pull your dough, roll it out long, cut your triangles, and shape ⏳ Proof until puffy and jiggly. This is the make-or-break step, so don’t rush it. French folks, you’re looking at a couple hours. Sourdough, yours runs longer, 3 to 5, so be patient with it. 🔥 Egg wash, then bake to a deep mahogany. Pale is underbaked. Let that color build. Now, two things about the heat. 🎇 First, the real one. This heat wave across the country is dangerous, not just uncomfortable. Drink your water, stay cool, and check on the older folks and neighbors around you. Your bread can wait. You come first. Take care of yourselves out there. 🇺🇸 Second, that same heat is sitting in your kitchen. Your final proof has to stay under 78F or the butter melts and weeps out before the croissants ever hit the oven. Find the coolest room in the house. If your kitchen’s running warm, the fridge is still your friend, use it to hold the proof steady. Keep a close eye today, because in this heat they can over-proof faster than you’d think. This thread is home base all day. 🎆 Post your progress right here. Your shaped croissants, your proof, your first tray out of the oven, your crumb shots when you cut in. And if you hit a snag, butter leaking, dough fighting you, proof looking off, drop it in the comments and I’ll walk you through it. I’m around all day. Let’s bake, everybody. 🇺🇸🥐 Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥🇺🇸

🥐✨ This Weekend We Laminate ✨🥐 Alright, you all asked for it... so we're doing it. Now before anybody panics, I want you to think about where you've already been. This isn't some giant leap. It's simply the next step on a staircase you've already been climbing. 🧈 Remember Brioche Week? That's where you learned to handle butter. Adding it one piece at a time. Watching for the break. Keeping it cool so it works with the dough instead of against it. That was your foundation. 🥮 Then came Babka. You learned that cold, firm butter holds its shape, while warm butter melts into the dough and ruins your layers. Classic Sourdough Croissant: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/sourdough-croissants Yeasted Croissant: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/classic-french-croissants Keep the butter cold. Keep the layers distinct. Sound familiar? That's lamination in plain clothes. 🦓 Then there was Zebra Bread. Stack. Fold. Roll. Repeat. Every fold multiplied the layers. Chill before you roll. Go easy on the flour. Roll it with confidence. You've already done those movements with your own hands. ✨ Croissants are simply all three of those skills coming together. 🥐 Butter control from brioche. 🥐 Cold butter creating layers from babka. 🥐 Fold-and-roll technique from zebra bread. You're not starting from scratch. You're putting together things you already know. ❤️ We're gonna go slow, one fold at a time, and I'll walk you through every single step. 🛒 Before Saturday, gather a few things: 🧈 Good butter. The higher the butterfat, the better. European-style if you can find it. 🌡️ A cool kitchen, if you've got one... and a little patience. ⚖️ Your digital scale, because we're weighing everything. Bring your questions. Bring your nerves. Bring your butter. By Saturday afternoon you'll be holding something flaky, buttery, and golden that you made with your own two hands.

🥐 𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆: 𝗪𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸. Morning, everyone. Today's the day croissant week gets real. This is a bake you build over a few days, and it starts now, so let's get set up right. 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁, 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝘄𝗹: 🧈 Your good European butter, cold and waiting (82% fat or higher) ⚖️ Flour, sugar, and salt weighed out 🫧 Sourdough folks: build your levain this morning so it's ripe by tonight 📖 Read your recipe all the way through, start to finish, before you begin 🧊 Clear a shelf in your fridge right now. You're gonna need the room. Now the part none of us can ignore this week. It's hot. And heat is the enemy of lamination. A warm kitchen means soft butter, and soft butter means your layers smear together and leak instead of staying separate and distinct. That's the whole game right there. So here's the rule for the week: the refrigerator is our friend. Lean on it. The moment your dough or butter starts to feel soft, greasy, or sticky, stop and put it back in the fridge for 20 or 30 minutes. There's no penalty for chilling. There's a big penalty for pushing through with warm butter. 𝗔 𝗳𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁: ❄️ Chill your rolling pin and your work surface (set a sheet pan of ice on the counter a few minutes, then dry it) ⏱️ Work in short bursts. Roll, fold, chill, repeat. 🌅 Laminate in the coolest part of the day, early morning or evening 🧈 Keep your butter block in the fridge until the second you need it This is the challenge that makes croissants croissants. Respect the butter, respect the heat, and let the cold do the work for you. So tell me below: who's starting today, and are you going French or sourdough? I want to know who I'm walking through what this week. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

Morning, bakers. Today's the day. Pull up a chair, this thread is home base. Here's how it works. Drop your photos, your questions, and your wins right here in the comments as you go. I'll be in and out all day answering. You don't have to keep up with the clock, jump in whenever you start. Before you start Three recipes, pick your lane: 🥨 Classic yeasted, the fast one, about two hours start to finish 🌾 Sourdough, the flavor play, for those who fed a starter 👧 Kids version, simple bites, pull the little ones in All three are in the Recipe Pantry. The one thing every single one of them needs: the baking soda bath. That's what makes a pretzel a pretzel. Today's rhythm 🕐 Mix and rest your dough 🕑 Shape, don't fight the gluten, let your ropes rest in rotation 🛁 Thirty seconds in the bath, quick in, quick out 🔥 Bake at 425 until deep golden brown 🧈 Butter the second they leave the oven, salt while wet so it sticks Drop in the comments 📸 Your dough, your shaping, your bakes, all of it ❓ Any question, no matter how small 🆘 Stuck? Tag me right here and I'll walk you through it I baked a full batch yesterday and took a pile of notes I'll be sharing all day. First pretzel always looks rough. By your fifth, it clicks. Ugly pretzels taste just as good. Let's bake. 🥨 Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

Let's talk about the one thing that turns a knot of dough into a real pretzel. When you dip your shaped pretzel into boiling water with baking soda stirred in, you turn that water alkaline. That high pH is the whole game. It's what gives you the deep brown color, the chewy skin, and that flavor you can't get any other way. The browning fires fast and hard in the oven because of that bath. Not from gluten. Not from scoring. Not from steam. The bath. 𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗻𝗮𝗶𝗹: 🥨 Baking soda, not lye. You do not need lye at home. Plain baking soda gets you ninety percent of the way there, and it's safe and already in your cupboard. ⏱️ Thirty seconds, quick in and quick out. Go too long and the surface turns gummy with a metallic taste. Remember, the water's a treatment, not a cooking step. 📆 Saturday we're baking these together. You've got three recipes waiting for you, classic yeasted, sourdough, and a kids version, all in the Recipe Pantry and ready to go. 🪑 Pull up a chair, bring your questions, and don't sweat how the first one looks. The ugly ones taste just as good. Perfection is not required. Progress is. 🙏 Please, while you're there hit like and subscribe.✔️ It helps us more than you know. Thank you very much ~Henry ⭐🔥