I’ve had a crack at making almond croissants.  I strongly suspect these would have turned out better if I’d parked the almond element for my first attempt, but no.  I had to go full croissant.

The end result appears quite nice, but to be fair, a sprinkle of icing sugar and a kindly Instagram filter, and I’d probably look like hot stuff too.

I started off pretty well.  I mean.  Check out my layers, if I may say so.  These aren’t a quick bake – you have to start these the day before.  It’s quite satisfying braying a full pack of butter with a rolling pin, although you do have to park the thought of it being an entire 250g of butter.

So far, so good; however, I had no clue what on earth I was doing when it came to the folding, and these had the added element of almond paste to try and encapsulate within the folds.  Yes, more butter.

It meant that when I took them out of the oven, the almond paste had largely made a break for it, and the croissants had kind of half-fried, rather than baked, in the heat.  They had a flavour a bit like churros, with added almondyness.

Still, an ok first attempt, although I wish I’d at least made half normal, half almond, as I suspect normal ones would have turned out pretty well.