Real Croissants

DSC_0066

Check out these beauties! I am so excited with how these turned out. A couple of years ago I had some cinnamon rolls that a lady made at my women’s Bible study group.  I was so impressed that she made them from scratch and decided to try to make some myself. Never had I worked with yeast before, but I set out to make cinnamon rolls and that I did.  My love for making things has grown from that first adventure making cinnamon rolls over the last two years, and I have to say that each time I try a new recipe I get so excited! I LOVE to go to a bakery and grab a croissant. It’s not something I have the luxury to do often though. I decided to try out making them myself.  I researched for a few days and watched how to videos. I finally picked a recipe and went for it. I have to say that I will use this recipe again…this IS IT!  Making croissants isn’t hard but does take some time. SO I will share with you how I did it and the recipe along with how to video I watched.

Day 1: I made the dough. I put it in a floured cake pan (covered) to set overnight. I also made the butter square which is a cup of butter made into a 7×7 square on parchment paper.

Day 2: I rolled the dough out into a 10″ square and placed the butter square on top. Then I folded the dough onto the butter kinda like wrapping a present. Next I rolled the dough into a rectangle measuring 8″ wide and 24″ long. Fold that into thirds, wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Take out roll out again into 8×24″ rectangle and fold into thirds, wrap, and refrigerate for 30 more minutes. Now one last time roll it out, fold into thirds, wrap, and then refrigerate overnight.

Day 3: Take out the dough and cut it in half.  Roll each half of dough into a 8×22″ rectangle. Cut into squares and then cut each square in half to make two triangles. Roll up and place on parchment paper covered baking sheet. Let rise for an hour. Make an egg wash with one egg and some milk.  Egg wash each croissant and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. I had two trays of croissants. Halfway through baking time I switched the trays so that they all cooked evenly as suggested in the video.

*I got 12 good sized croissants and a few tiny ones from the scraps. Let me just say the are PERFECT! Every minute spent making these was well worth it!

Here are a couple of pictures along the way….

IMG_3441[1]

IMG_3451[1]

IMG_3454[1]

IMG_3457[1]

DSC_0074

DSC_0075

Click here for the recipe and how to video!

Sight Word & Spelling Word Practice Made Fun

My daughter is in first grade this year. I am so thankful she has an amazing teacher. One thing I really appreciate is the way she does homework…..it’s all purposeful! When I taught I will admit that I went along with all the other teachers making my students do the “typical” spelling homework. You know the write your words 3 times, use each word in a sentence, etc. Last year I had the “privilege” of doing that kind of homework with my sweet girl….and it wasn’t that fun. Although she did learn a lot from it:)  I think in the future when I return to the classroom, I will be changing the way I do homework! This year my girl’s spelling homework isn’t that kind….so it allows me the freedom to practice spelling words in any way I choose. So let’s make this fun:

DSC_0274

Take a jelly roll style pan and cover it in foil. Paint colored stripes with acrylic paints and let it dry. Spread a thin layer of shaving cream on top. Have your child practice writing their words in the shaving creams revealing a rainbow underneath! Mine loved this!

DSC_0281

Take a white sheet of paper and write your child’s words in white crayon. Let the child use water colors to reveal the hidden words!

Chocolate Chip Dessert Pizza

Growing up there was a little pizza place that served this amazing chocolate chip dessert pizza….totally worth a trip to this place just for that pizza alone! I have tried to “recreate” it a couple of times. I recently tried again and although it’s not exact it’s pretty good!

Here’s what I did:

  • Roll out your pizza dough very thin. I made my own, but feel free to use store bought.
  • Mix a yellow cake mix with one stick of melted butter (1/2cup).
  • Crumble the cake mixture onto the pizza dough.
  • Sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Mini ones works best but use what you have…I used big semi-sweet ones here.
  • Bake at 450 for 11-14 minutes.