Learned a hard lesson about pastry butter temperature last Wednesday

I was at the restaurant prepping for brunch service and my croissant dough felt off from the start. The butter was too cold from the walk-in and it shattered into little pieces during the lamination process. Instead of getting those nice even layers, I ended up with butter chunks poking through the dough on the first fold. Tried to save it by letting it rest longer but the damage was done. Ended up serving some ugly but still tasty pastries that day. Anyone else had a batch go south because you rushed the butter temp?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor3051mo ago

50 degrees is my butter sweet spot after ruining a whole batch just like you did.

beth_hart681mo ago

And another thing nobody's really talking about is how the butter itself makes a difference, not just the temp. Like, I grab whatever's on sale at Aldi and it's fine for most things, but that fancy European butter with the higher fat content actually seems more forgiving at lower temperatures. It resists browning and breaking weird when you mess up the heat. I end up saving the cheap stuff for spreading on toast and the good stuff for baking precisely because it gives me more leeway when I'm experimenting with temps. Could be worth trying if you find yourself wrecking batches at 50 degrees still.