Pain au Chocolat et Croissants

French Friday 

I have been meaning to make croissants for a while now, and I haven't been afraid of making them or anything, I just haven't had enough time (although really they don't take that long to make.) These did not turn out how I wanted them to, how they were supposed to, but in the beginning it looked like it was going pretty well- and it was! But then I proofed the croissants while I was making the pain au chocolat and baked them at the same time (cause I was stupid enough to use  my oven as a proofer) which means that the croissants had proofed so much that they fell in on themselves. I got this recipe from a youtuber called nunusciuciu : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqv14cDy98Q and I think the fact that mine went all wrong has more to do with me than the recipe.
Ingredients:

• 130g icing sugar
• 100g butter+250 g
• 500ml milk
• 20g salt
• 3 eggs
• 1kg flour+200g
• 50g fresh yeast
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Method:

1. Melt 100g of the butter, then let cool slightly
2. In your mixer combine the melted butter,eggs,milk,sugar,salt and vanilla.
3. Crumble in the fresh yeast and mix thoroughly.
4. Then add the flour and mix until a dough forms.
5.  Cover the bowl with clingfilm and let proof in a warm place.
6. Combine 250g butter with 200g flour and place in the freezer.
7. Roll out the frozen butter-flour mixture to a small rectangle.
8. Roll out the dough to a rectangle about three times the size of the butter-flour square.
9. Place the butter-flour square in the middle of the dough rectangle and fold the dough over(so it looks like and envolope.
10. Roll it out to twice the size, then fold into three.
11. Roll it out triple the size then roll into three again. Repeat.
12. Roll out the dough to about 1cm, and cut lengthwise so you have long rectangles, then cut vertical so you have rectangles.
13. You can now either leave it as a rectangle to make pain au chocolat or cut each rectangle in half diagonally so that it makes two triangles.
14. Roll the triangles up from the wide end to make croissants. In the rectangle put a strip of chcolate on both ends of the rectangle and roll towards the middle until both meet. Place seam side down on the baking sheet.
15. Let the shapes proof for 1-2 hours until risen.
16. Bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Popcorn Caramel Salee

French Friday 
You might be wondering since when caramel popcorn is french, but if you think about the caramel part of caramel popcorn I'm sure you get why. Caramel essentially is not hard to make, but knowing when it's done is, either way for me it doesn't matter because I entirely messed it up anyway. I had a recipe on a postcard that I got from the Frankfurt book fair, and it was a caramel popcorn recipe that required butter,sugar,salt and condensed milk. I decided to make a simple caramel like I made when carmelising the pumpkin seeds, and left out the condensed milk, turns out I should have left out most of the butter too. After getting the butter out of the pan it turned out really well though.

Caramel Popcorn:

• 1/8 cup dried corn (for popcorn)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 100g (1/2 cup) sugar (such as caster or brown)
• 10g butter
• pinch of fleur de sel 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

1. In a large pot heat the vegetable oil on high for about 2-3 minutes, then add the corn kernels and cover with lid, allowing a space for ventilation. 
2. When the popping sound stops, take off the heat.
3. Pour your popcorn into a large bowl, then return the pot to the heat and add butter and sugar, melting on low.
4. Once the sugar has melted wait for it to turn an amber color, then take off heat, quickly add the fleur de sel and baking soda and pour over popcorn. Use a spatula to evenly distribute over the popcorn.
5. Lay the popcorn out in a single layer on a baking sheet, then if it's all stuck together,break it up.