Laminating butter (dry butter, 84%)

Beurre de tourage (beurre sec)

What it is

Ordinary butter cracks when cold and leaks when warm; laminating butter is churned and worked so its fat crystals stay plastic across roughly 14 to 18 °C, the window a croissant is folded in. Three letter folds turn one sheet of it into twenty-seven, each thinner than a page.

In the kitchen

Butter and dough must be equally firm when you roll — if the butter is harder it shatters into shards and the layers weld shut. Bring both to about 14 °C and rest the dough 30 minutes between turns.

Goes with

T45 flour T55 flour Baker’s yeast White sugar Egg Dark chocolate Cream

Same species

Clarified butter Ghee Niter kibbeh Raw-milk butter Smen (fermented Moroccan butter)

Also used with

Gruau flour

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us