I Ran A Custom Croissant Shop For A Day
Summary
TLDRIn this entertaining and informative video, the host embarks on a culinary adventure to learn the art of croissant making at Black Box Bakery in Denver. From the classic butter croissant to the innovative croissant cube, the video showcases the meticulous process of crafting these flaky pastries. With the help of the bakery's skilled pastry chefs, the host experiences the challenges and rewards of creating viral and visually stunning pastries, culminating in a taste test of their homemade creations.
Takeaways
- 🥐 The video is about running a viral croissant bakery and exploring the popularity of croissants on the internet.
- 🍞 Croissants have become an internet darling, appearing in various media platforms and memes.
- 🥨 The bakery featured, Black Box Bakery in Denver, is known for its unique and flavorful croissants, especially their filled croissant cubes.
- 🧁 The process of making croissants is detailed, highlighting the difficulty and satisfaction of creating the flaky layers through lamination.
- 🥖 The video includes a sponsorship by Headspace, an app for meditation and sleep aids.
- 🥞 The croissant dough requires cold temperatures for most of its construction to maintain the butter layers.
- 🧇 The croissant bakery creates both traditional butter croissants and custom 'crubes' with unique fillings and decorations.
- 🍩 The video emphasizes the craft and artistry behind pastry making, including the use of professional equipment like a laminator and sheeter.
- 🥪 The host attempts to make croissants and 'crubes', learning the fundamentals from the pastry chefs at Black Box Bakery.
- 🥦 The video showcases the final products, including a custom 'goth-lite' croissant cube filled with Earl Grey and elderflower flavors.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the video?
-The main theme of the video is the process of running a viral croissant bakery and learning to make various types of croissants, including traditional and unique filled croissant cubes, at Black Box Bakery in Denver.
Why are croissants considered an internet darling?
-Croissants are considered an internet darling because they have become a highly memed food and have inspired many popular viral foods like the giant croissant, croissant donut, cronut, croissant waffle, and others. Their flaky, buttery texture and the satisfaction of seeing the baking process have also contributed to their online popularity.
What is Black Box Bakery known for?
-Black Box Bakery is known for its unique, colorful, and flavorful croissants, particularly their filled croissant cubes. The bakery specializes in pushing the boundaries of baked goods and experimenting with new takes on classic pastries.
What is the significance of the term 'mise en place' in the context of the video?
-In the context of the video, 'mise en place' refers to the initial step in cooking where all the ingredients are measured and prepared before starting the cooking process. This is an essential step in making croissants, as it organizes the ingredients needed for the dough and the laminating process.
How is the croissant dough prepared differently from regular bread dough?
-Croissant dough is prepared differently from regular bread dough by the process of laminating the dough, which involves folding butter into the dough multiple times to create thin layers of butter and dough. When baked, the butter melts and creates steam, leading to the croissant's signature flaky, airy layers.
What are the key components of the traditional butter croissant-making process?
-The key components of the traditional butter croissant-making process include measuring and mixing ingredients such as milk, bread flour, all-purpose flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and butter. The dough is then shaped, flattened, laminated, rested, and rolled into the iconic crescent shape before baking.
What is the significance of the croissant cube?
-The croissant cube is significant because it offers a new and innovative form of the traditional croissant. It provides a visually appealing shape, allows for various delicious fillings, and offers more surface area for creative decorations, making it a viral sensation and a popular item in bakeries.
What are some of the unique croissant creations mentioned in the video?
-Some of the unique croissant creations mentioned in the video include the giant croissant, croissant donut, cronut (croissant-doughnut hybrid), croissant waffle (cromboloni), croissant bomboloni, and the croissant cookie or crookie.
How does the video address the difficulty of making croissants?
-The video acknowledges that making croissants is notoriously difficult, particularly due to the laminating process which creates the croissant's distinctive layers. However, it also highlights the satisfaction of watching every step of the process and the rewarding outcome after the challenging work.
What is the role of the sponsor Headspace in the video?
-Headspace is the sponsor of the video, and it is mentioned as an app that provides a library of content from guided meditations to self-care practices. The video suggests that Headspace can help decrease stress, increase mindfulness, and improve mental health, especially for those with overactive brains.
Outlines
🎥 Introduction to Croissant Venture
The video begins with energetic music and a lively introduction to the host's exciting new venture - running a viral croissant bakery. The host expresses their love for croissants, highlighting their popularity and cultural significance, from being a meme to inspiring various viral food trends. The segment also touches on the host's intention to explore the craft behind niche small businesses and their excitement to learn the art of making croissants at Black Box Bakery in Denver, famous for its unique and flavorful croissants.
🥐 Croissant Making 101
This paragraph delves into the process of making croissants from scratch. It starts with the preparation of ingredients, including milk, bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and butter. The importance of keeping the dough cold during most of its construction is emphasized. The host is introduced to Black Box Bakery's space-themed concept and their innovative approach to pastries. The process of mixing ingredients in a large industrial mixer is described, along with the creation of laminated dough by folding butter into the dough multiple times to achieve the croissant's signature flaky layers.
🤣 Learning the Craft with Hilarity
The host's journey of learning to make croissants continues with the use of professional pastry-making equipment. The video captures the host's humorous attempts to shape the dough and the playful banter with the bakery team. The process of flattening the dough using a laminator, resting the dough in the fridge, and laminating it with butter is detailed. The host's amusing efforts to roll the dough and create the classic croissant shape are highlighted, along with the challenges faced due to their warm hands.
🍪 Exploring the Croissant Cube
The focus shifts to the innovative croissant cube, explaining why it has become viral. The process of making the cube is described, starting with the same laminating process as traditional croissants. The host and the bakery team then move on to create a custom croissant cube with black and white stripes, representing a goth-lite aesthetic. The paragraph showcases the steps of creating the dough, laminating it, and preparing it for baking, all while maintaining a light-hearted and entertaining tone.
🍯 Crafting Delicious Fillings
This section is dedicated to the creation of fillings for the croissants. The host learns to make mulled wine ganache and orange diplomat cream for the mulled wine cube, and Earl Gray whipped ganache paired with elderflower flavored honey for the custom cube. The video describes the process of making these fillings, including the use of unique ingredients like glucose and trimoline, and the effort put into achieving the perfect texture and flavor balance.
🥧 Baking and Decorating Delights
The croissants and cubes are now ready for baking. The host learns about proofing the dough in a warm and moist environment to allow the yeast to ferment and make the dough rise. The baking process is described, with a focus on the transformation of the dough into beautifully browned, crispy croissants. The video then moves on to the decoration and filling of the cubes, with detailed steps on how to fill them with the prepared creams and decorate the tops with artistic flair.
😋 Taste Testing and Reflections
The video concludes with a taste test of the various croissants and cubes. The host, along with the bakery team, savors the fruits of their labor, providing their reactions and comments on the taste, texture, and overall experience of the different pastries. The custom striped gilded egg croissant is praised for its gooeyness and balanced flavors, while the mulled wine cube is celebrated for its festive and comforting qualities. The host reflects on the learning experience and expresses gratitude to Black Box Bakery for the opportunity.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Croissant
💡Laminating
💡Proofing
💡Baking
💡Filling
💡Decorating
💡Black Box Bakery
💡Headspace
💡Denver
💡Cronut
💡ASMR
Highlights
The video introduces the concept of running a viral croissant bakery and the popularity of croissants in internet culture.
Croissants have become a highly memed food and inspired various viral food trends like the cronut and croffle.
The Black Box Bakery in Denver, known for its unique and colorful croissants, was chosen as the location for the bakery takeover.
The process of making croissants is highlighted, emphasizing the difficulty and satisfaction of each step.
A key step in croissant making is laminating the dough, which involves folding butter into the dough to create thin layers.
Black Box Bakery's space-themed approach to pastries was discussed, including their interest in aliens and conspiracy theories.
The video features a variety of unique croissant creations like the sweet potato maple starship and the eggnog cruffin.
The process of shaping and laminating the croissant dough is detailed, including the use of a sheeter for flattening.
The video includes a tutorial on making a traditional butter croissant from scratch.
The creation of custom croissant cubes by the narrator and the Black Box team is showcased.
The importance of proofing the dough before baking to allow for yeast fermentation and rising is explained.
The baking process of the croissants and cubes is depicted, highlighting the transformation from dough to finished product.
The video demonstrates the art of decorating the baked croissants and cubes with creative toppings and fillings.
A tasting session of the various croissants and cubes is conducted, providing feedback on taste and texture.
The video concludes with the narrator reflecting on the learning experience and the challenges of making croissants.
Transcripts
(upbeat funky music)
- Hello friends, and welcome to another video.
Today I'm gonna be running a viral croissant bakery.
That's right. I said croissant.
Now I like croissant, and at this point, who doesn't?
The quintessentially French crescent shaped pastry
is not only super delicious and iconically flaky
and buttery, but also in recent years
has become something of an internet darling.
- Stop, I could have dropped my croissant.
- Are you going to finish that croissant?
- [Woman] Croissant.
- Croissant.
- From anime to Jimmy Neutron, to Vine, to TikTok,
the people love croissant.
And even though I have always loved the taste of croissants,
that huge pack of croissants from Costco
just hits different.
I am surprised by how much stick the product has
in the public imagination as not only is it
a highly memed food, it's also the basis of tons
of super popular viral foods like the giant croissant,
the croissant donut, or cronut, the croissant waffle
or croffle, the croissant bomboloni, cromboloni,
and the croissant cookie or crookie.
And not only do people wait in line for hours
to try these delectable creations,
but there's also a ton of content out there
of people kneading, rolling, garnishing, baking, decorating,
slicing, munching, and crunching these beautiful pastries.
Maybe that's partially why these things are so popular.
The croissant is notoriously difficult to make,
but every step of the process
is pretty satisfying to look at.
And then after just one crunch, it's gone.
And after falling down a cronut hole of croissant content,
I thought, "I gotta try and make some (bleep) croissants."
And in our quest to learn the craft
behind oddly satisfying niche small businesses,
running a croissant bakery seemed right up our alley.
And in my search for a willing bakery,
we stumbled upon Black Box Bakery, a pastry shop in Denver
that specializes in unique, colorful, flavorful croissant
that gained notoriety
for their crazy filled croissant cubes.
And against all odds, they agreed to let me take over
their bakery for a day.
and both learn to make some croissant
as well as make some custom croissant cubes of my own
that if you guys go there in person,
you'll be able to try out for yourself.
No word yet on whether or not we're calling them crubes,
but I'll do my best.
All right, so let's go and make some croissant.
But before we head off, I do wanna give a quick shout out
to the sponsor of this video Headspace.
If you're like me and have an overactive brain
with basically a scrolling for you page inside of it,
filled with your Google calendar, to-do list, email inbox,
and the occasional flash of croissant,
you might benefit from some Headspace.
Now, if you haven't heard of it before,
Headspace provides a huge library of different content
from guided meditations to other self-care practices
to help you decrease stress, increase mindfulness,
and take care of your mental health.
Now, I have historically not been that good at meditating,
so I was a little unsure at first
if Headspace would work for me,
but Headspace has such a variety of different programs
to choose from that even with just a few minutes a day,
I can do breathing exercises to feel more grounded
or a quick five meditation to refocus
and feel more productive.
And my favorite, and honestly, the thing that I use the most
on Headspace is their huge catalog of sleepcasts.
As you guys can tell, I watch a lot of content
and while I can spend hours doom scrolling in bed,
it's not the best way to fall asleep.
And Headspace's sleepcasts are a great way
to occupy my wandering brain
instead of having my phone in my hand.
Tyler and I love the Beachcomber and Evening Tide casts,
and you can even hear YouTube ASMR legend, Gibi
narrating Whispering Pines.
So if you think some Headspace could be helpful
in your life, we've partnered with 'em
to offer viewers of this channel
a 60-day free trial of the app
so you can try it out completely for free.
All you have to do is sign up
with my link in the description
or scan the QR code on screen, somewhere on screen,
and who knows, a calm and crunchy croissant
sleepcast could be next.
So with that, thanks again to Headspace
and now onto the croissant.
Now the first step in our croissant quest
was to get to Denver.
Interestingly, Denver seems to be some kind
of croissant hotspot, which I did not know
before doing research for this video.
I haven't spent a lot of time there historically,
as some of you guys may remember,
we got to spend about 30 minutes at Denver's Union Station
on our train trip across the country,
but where the croissants are, I go, so there we went.
All right, so we're here at the Edgewater Public Market
in Denver, Colorado, outside of Black Box Bakery,
and we're about to go in there
and make some fricking croissants, people.
And when we arrived, Black Box's founder
and master baker, Arielle was waiting for us
ready to slap me in an apron and whip me into shape.
- [Arielle] All right. So uniform first.
And right off the bat I was feeling super professional
in my assigned chef jacket and corresponding apron.
- Look, I was born to be a chef.
(group laughing)
- [Arielle] I'm gonna get you a towel too.
- Ooh, a towel.
One thing you can't do is give me a prop or costume
because I will fall into character right away.
- [Tyler] You look food competition show ready right now.
- All right. Let's go. Really you do.
- Where is the lamb sauce?
But even if my appearance said otherwise,
I was still a complete pastry noob
so we had to start at the very beginning
with our plan being to first make
a traditional butter croissant from scratch
so I could learn some of the fundamentals,
then make one of Black Box's
signature viral croissant cubes,
and after that, once I had a little more knowledge,
make a custom crube of my own.
And step one of our croissant making journey
was mise en place, or measuring out all of our ingredients.
- [Arielle] It's kind of perfect height for you
'cause I can't reach that.
- Oh, okay, this is what I'm here for.
- [Arielle] Yes.
- [Safiya] Which to make croissant
meant we had to measure out a fair amount of milk,
then some bread flour on wheels.
- [Safiya] Too bread, too furious.
- Bread drift.
Which gives your baked goods a little more structure
and chewiness compared to all-purpose flour.
A lot of all-purpose flour does go in there too though.
Yeast, sugar, salt.
- It's the way of life down here.
- [Tyler] You mean up here?
- Up, up, up here.
- A mile high in the air.
And a fair amount of butter.
And unlike with some other dough recipes,
croissant dough overall needs to be cold
for most of its construction
so these things are gonna be going in and out
of the walk-in / freezer.
- I do like these flaps.
- It feels like a 70s bedroom.
Now Black box Bakery is actually a space-themed bakery
because not only are the pastries out of this world good,
their goal is to push the boundaries of baked goods
and experiment with new and unique takes
on the classic pastries we all know and love.
- [Arielle] We took it in a way that space is infinite.
I mean, there's a lot of things to be discovered
and we kind of feel like we can do that with pastry,
where we just want to go on an adventure
and see what we can get.
They are also apparently very into aliens
and conspiracy theories.
- All right, conspiracy bakery.
- [Arielle] Yeah, so that's just like fun for us.
- [Safiya] Ha!
People in Denver are very serious
about their conspiracies I've heard.
Conspiracies and croissants.
- [Tyler] Where's the Denver airport box?
- Yeah, exactly.
And airport conspiracies, don't forget those.
- I mean, the horse is haunted?
- [Arielle] He killed his his creator. Yes.
- Okay. Okay. There you go.
- [Arielle] Yeah, so that's not a conspiracy it actually happened.
- That's true.
That's true. Okay. - Yeah.
And even though Black Box Bakery is by all accounts
a funky bakery, Arielle and her team are all highly trained
pastry chefs, which makes sense.
In order to push the boundaries of croissants,
you have to be good at making croissants.
And all this combined has led them to such creations
as the sweet potato maple starship,
croissant ice cream cones, the eggnog cruffin,
the cheezit croissant, and the mishmish.
No word yet on what that is exactly.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Basic croissants first, trip to pastry 51 later.
So with all of our ingredients measured out
and our butter cubed to satisfaction,
or rather henged to satisfaction.
Butter Henge. - Butter Henge.
It kind of fits into the conspiracy bakery.
- [Tyler] Yeah, they're like a conspiracy (indistinct).
- What is the meaning of Stonehenge?
It was finally time to mix all of our ingredients together
in this giant industrial mixer.
Hello. Just open and dump? Okay.
- [Tyler] Controlled dumping.
- [Arielle] It's controlled dumping. Yes.
- [Safiya] A controlled dump. Let's see how we do.
And she is a pretty impressive beast,
devouring all of our ingredients.
Somewhere down there is milk.
- [Arielle] Yeah.
- [Safiya] And then whacking them into dough.
Ooh oh, all right. Yeah.
Look at that corkscrew go.
And as this mound of dough is forming in front of me...
She do be mixing.
Look at it. It looks fluffy and bouncy.
I think we were starting to face the looming question of
how do we turn this blob into a delicate pastry?
May I? - Yeah.
- [Safiya] Oh, that's pretty stretchy.
Now croissant dough is a yeasted dough like bread
so the dough itself isn't actually super special.
Oh my God.
- [Arielle] It's gonna, yeah, it's gonna take some force.
- [Safiya] Oh my God.
- [Arielle] You can even saw at it a little bit.
- [Safiya] Okay. Yeah. Sawing is working.
- [Arielle] Yeah.
- [Safiya] For example,
if you just baked one of these lumps,
it would not be a croissant, it would just become bread.
It turns out the key element of the croissant
is that you laminate the dough, which simplified
means folding butter into the dough multiple times
to create very thin layers of butter and dough.
And when you put laminated dough in the oven,
the butter will melt and create steam
lifting the layers apart and leaving you
with dozens of flaky, airy, buttery layers of croissant.
And if you're a seasoned pastry chef like Arielle,
you're hoping for a nice even honeycomb structure like this.
So to start our lengthy process of croissanting,
I had to make sure that each hunk of our dough
was shaped into a nice orb
by kind of folding it under itself.
- So you don't have like random pieces going everywhere.
- Fair enough.
- So what you're gonna do
is basically just pull it towards yourself.
- [Safiya] Mm.
And apparently my interpretation of Arielle's instructions
here included a hip thrust for some reason.
(all laughing)
- [Tyler] That was just a hump, Saf.
(all laughing)
- Sorry, I just trying to get into it.
(all laughing)
And though after watching other people do this step,
I do think some of what I was doing was correct,
I was just using a little too much pelvis.
What? Why are you looking at me? What?
There was just a little more doughnut daddy
in my technique than I had hoped,
but once we had some nice even little dough dudes...
- [Arielle] It looks beautiful.
- Hey, well that's pretty good.
(hands tapping)
- [Arielle] Bongos.
- [Safiya] It was time to start
flattening them into sheets.
- [Safiya] This one looks like a face, little alien.
- Oh. - Oh my God.
- [Safiya] They're everywhere.
- [Tyler] This video's gonna get taken down.
(all laughing)
- [Safiya] Now if you watch
an at-home croissant-making tutorial,
this is usually where the rolling pin will come out,
but one of the advantages of hanging out
with a professional pastry chef
is that she has some serious pastry making equipment.
- This is the laminator AKA sheeter.
- [Safiya] Love it.
- And your job is the laminator.
- I'm the laminator.
- [Tyler] It's like a Denzel Washington movie.
(all laughing)
- "The Laminator." - "The Laminator."
- This my friends, is an electric dough sheeter,
and it's gonna flatten out our dough in no time.
I feel like this is a very powerful position.
You know what I mean?
I'll hit you with a little of this, a little bit of that,
some of that checkout aisle action. (laughs)
So after throwing a little bit of flour
on our humped lumps...
How's that?
- Even better. A little better?
- Yeah. Does the speed help?
We put our dough on the sheeter and started flattening.
- [Safiya] On your mark, get set. Go.
- And I kind of think of the sheeter
as like a reverse rolling pin
as it has its own pin that lowers down
and a conveyor belt that moves underneath it...
A little to the left...
Which speeds the dough from one side
of the sheeter to the other...
A little to the right...
Flattening it in the process.
And once we had some relatively flat sheets of dough...
Ooh, it fits. If it fits, he sits.
Let's go.
- [Arielle] Onwards.
- Onwards.
They needed to rest and cool for a stint in the fridge
after which...
Oh yeah, he's squishy...
We were ready to whip out some slabs of butter
and start laminating.
It's slabs.
iPad kids be like.
(all laughing)
Now to laminate this dough,
we started by flattening it out even more.
Skinny legend, this dough...
And then also flattening out our iPads of butter
to match the thickness of the dough.
And once that was done,
we slapped our butter in the middle of the dough
and wrapped the dough around it like a Pop-Tart.
- [Arielle] So we basically just want the dough to meet
and not overlap, right?
- [Safiya] Right.
And once we had this dough, butter dough sandwich,
we put it back onto the sheeter
and started flattening again.
- [Tyler] Woah.
- [Safiya] It's getting pretty long.
- [Arielle] It's gonna get longer.
- [Safiya] Until it turned into basically
a long, flat scarf.
Then in order to build those trademark croissant layers,
we folded our scarf back onto itself
once and then twice,
which quadrupled our layers of dough, butter, and dough.
Oh.
You're folding it over like a sheet.
- [Arielle] Exactly.
- [Safiya] Then flipping and flattening our sheet
in the other direction.
♪ There she goes ♪
♪ There she goes again ♪
- [Safiya] And then folding it back onto itself again.
This time to triple our already multiplied layers.
- [Tyler] Layers on layers on layers.
- [Arielle] They exist.
- [Safiya] Layers on layers on layers.
- [Tyler] Yeah.
- [Safiya] And this relatively manageable stack of layers
is called a book, which once it was created,
had to rest in the fridge for a while
before it was ready to be used.
- Try to get under it.
- I'm good. I'm in.
- [Arielle] Perfect.
- [Safiya] But its future was not unwritten, for
it was about to become a whole bunch of croissant.
- Goodnight Sweet prince.
(both laughing)
- [Safiya] Now, after our book was fully rested
and ready to emerge from the fridge,
we then flattened it once more on the sheeter
to make sure all of our layers were as thin as possible.
And when it was scarf like once again,
we rolled our book turned scroll onto this rod.
Whoa! That's awesome.
- [Arielle] Yeah.
- [Safiya] And then unfurled it onto our table
like a beautiful tasty roll of toilet paper.
Oh, oh, oh. Ooh. Photo finish.
Now this is where things get a little slicey,
as Arielle pulled out an array of pastry torture devices,
including what looked like a tandem pizza cutter.
- [Tyler] Wanna play a game?
(all laughing)
- [Safiya] POV, you are a pastry and this is "Saw."
- [Safiya] To slice our dough into strips
and then whipped out an X-acto knife and a ruler
to cut those strips into triangles.
And you do wanna be pretty quick about this
so all that butter in your layers doesn't start to melt.
Boom, goes the dynamite. Let's go.
Let's go boys.
I'm just screaming at pastry. Things are going well.
- [Arielle] They like it. I can see.
(Safiya laughs)