Life-Changing Cheater’s Croissant Dough

Below you will find a faster, easier way to make croissant dough, requiring no lamination of butter and no complicated shaping techniques. The dough comes together in under 10 minutes and produces a flaky, buttery pastry that can be used for both sweet and savory purposes, including croissants, Danishes, kouign amann, and more.

Traditional croissant dough requires a technique called lamination, a laborious process of folding and rolling butter into the dough to create hundreds of layers. The butter must not be too warm or too cold to ensure it incorporates properly into the dough, and the whole process requires many steps of resting and refrigeration.

Or does it?

Many years ago, I read about an easier way to make croissant dough in Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess. In the intro, Nigella describes the practice of making this sort of pastry dough in the food processor as revolutionary, not only because the dough comes together in seconds but also because it produces an authentic Danish pastry. She learned the method from Scandinavian chef Beatrice Ojakangas, who told her: “Don’t think you’re cheating by taking the fast track — this is how it’s done these days all over Denmark.”

This recipe truly is life-changing, especially if you’ve ever braved the traditional lamination process. While it does require a series of rolling and folding, it does not require any complicated shaping techniques, and it calls for cold butter. It produces a pastry that is both light and airy and rich and buttery.

Find step-by-step instructions below for making the dough, which you can use for cheese danishes, ham-and-cheese croissants, kouign amann, or anything calling for a croissant-like dough.

How to Make Cheater’s Croissant Dough, Step by Step

First, gather your ingredients:

Combine the milk and water in a liquid measure. Crack the egg into the measure, and whisk to combine:

Place the dry ingredients — flour, salt, sugar, and instant yeast into a food processor:

Whiz until blended, then add the cold, thinly sliced butter:

Pulse 10 times at 1-second intervals:

Transfer the contents to a large bowl, then add the egg-milk-water mixture:

Stir until you have a sticky mass:

Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 4 days. When you are ready to roll, remove the bowl from the fridge:

Turn it out onto a floured work surface:

Divide it into two equal portions (roughly 384 grams each):

Pat each portion into a rough square or rectangle:

Working with one portion at a time, roll out the dough into roughly a 10- to 11-inch square:

Fold the top third of the dough down:

Then the bottom third up:

Then fold the dough from right to left:

Then from left to right, to create a square. At this point, you’ve completed one set of folds.

You are now going to repeat this three more times. When the fourth set of folds is complete, your dough will be smooth with little to no signs of butter flecked throughout it:

Transfer your smooth, folded croissant dough to an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 days.

Repeat this process with the remaining half of the dough. At this point, the croissant dough can be frozen.

Use this dough to make cheese danishes, ham-and-cheese croissants, or kouign amann.

How to Make Croissants, Step by Step

To make classic croissants, remove the dough from the fridge:

Then roll it out into an 8×12-inch rectangle:

Cut the dough in half:

Then into triangles:

Arrange the triangles so that each flat end is closest to you:

Then coil up each triangle, starting at the flat end, ending with the tip tucked underneath.

Transfer the croissants to a parchment-lined sheet pan:

Let proof at room temperature for 2-3 hours (see notes in recipe box for more specific times and temperatures). I like to cover the croissants with a pan to keep them from drying out.

Once proofed, brush the croissants with an egg wash:

Then transfer to the oven and bake until golden all around, about 15 minutes at 400ºF:

Transfer to a cooling rack:

Then, enjoy!

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