First Bread - Croissants Cambo

I'm catching up on my previous weeks, so here is the bread from 2-7-2008.

This week’s bread is the croissant cambo, or unlayered croissant. Clayton got this recipe in Cambo-les-Bains, probably from a Basque boulanger. It differs from a typical unfilled croissant in several ways. Firstly, a typical croissant is made with lots of malt syrup and sugar, to give it its characteristic sweetness. This recipe calls for no additional sweetening and produces a much more savory bread, which would probably go quite well with jam. A layered croissant takes 15-18 hours to prepare, since there are two risings, the layering is time consuming, and it must spend at least 2 hours refrigerated before baking. Typical croissants are also glazed with egg whites at several stages and have butter sandwiched between very thin layers. Whichever type of croissant is being made, it’s a process which requires a lot of patience. If the dough is forced into shape or cut before it has relaxed, the final product will be much less attractive and delicious. My favorite variation on the croissant is filled with chocolate (it has a more rectangular shape, to accommodate the filling) and is best eaten after the chocolate has been melted in your hands.

The croissant has a storied history, but most of it appears to be fabrication. The most common stories claim that the origin of the croissant is in the siege of Vienna (or Budapest) in 1683 (or maybe 1686) by the Ottoman Empire. According to the legend, a baker working late near the city wall heard suspicious noises which, when investigated by the proper authorities, turned out to be the Turks attempting to tunnel under the city’s fortifications. As a reward, the baker was allowed to be the sole producer of fancy rolls in the shape of crescents, reminiscent of the Ottoman flag. (Larousse Gastronomique, Lang, 1988) The rolls then presumably migrated to France, where they were dubbed “croissants” for their crescent shape. A similar story actually exists for the name of bagels – they are said to be named for the bugles which sounded the alarm when the Turks invaded and to be shaped like stirrups. This is all very charming and romantic, but in fact, the first mention of croissants is in a French text from 1835, where they are categorized as a luxury bread. The earliest recipe dates to 1905 and is found in Favre’s Dictionaire universel de cuisine. (Oxford Companion to Food) This recipe is not at all similar to today’s buttery, flaky roll – it is a recipe for a pastry made of crushed almonds and sugar. The croissant we know today is a much more recent invention.

This week’s recipe was derived from “The Breads of France: How to Bake Them in Your Own Kitchen” by Bernard Clayton Jr. I also relied on reference materials including www.foodtimeline.org and “The Story of Bread” by Sheppard and Newton. For next time, I will be sure to have a pastry brush and sharp knife at hand.