Crescent Rolls

I was trying to figure out what my next baking challenge should be and decided to tackle homemade crescent rolls. I love tasting all those buttery layers, and, as I want to try my hand at making croissants, crescent rolls seemed like a good starting point.

I landed on this recipe (courtesy of Half Baked Harvest), donned an apron, and was ready to spend my morning in the kitchen.

The first step was to make dough and chill it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Once sufficiently chilled, the recipe calls to place the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll the dough into a large rectangle. Now here's the thing -- we live in the tropics, so keeping the dough in a somewhat chilled state was going to be a challenge. 

I managed to get around this problem by first chilling a baking sheet in the freezer during the last 15 minutes the dough was chilling in the fridge. I turned the baking sheet upside down, dusted it lightly with flour, and it really helped keep the dough at a consistent temperature.

The other item that came to the rescue was my new kitchen toy -- an aluminum rolling pin!

It even has graduated measurements on both ends!

This beauty was also placed in the freezer with the baking sheet.

Here you can see the rolled out dough and it's spread with 8 tablespoons of softened butter.

 The next was to fold the dough into three layers.

I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and placed it, the rolling pin, and the baking sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes.

When time was up, the dough was rolled out again into a rectangle, folded in three layers, then put back in the freezer for another 10 minutes. This process was repeated two more times. 

And just so you know, because the dough is chilled the rolling out process is a great workout for your wrists and arms. 

Once the final folding and freezing step was done, the dough was rolled out for the final time, cut into triangles, and rolled up.

The pan was covered with a towel and left to rise for about an hour.

When done resting, I brushed the rolls with egg wash, then the pan was placed into a pre-heated 400-degree oven for about 12 minutes.

And this is a sample of the lovely goodness that came out of the oven:

All those layers! And oh so buttery. I was very pleased with the result.

And let me just say that the rolling pin worked like a charm and worth every penny. It was true to its word of being non-stick, kept the chill for a good amount of time, and was a breeze to clean.

Looking forward to upping my game with croissants!