The Perfect Croissant: Step-By-Step Instructions Plus Fabulous Fillings by Dee Coutelle is her cookbook full of sweet and savoury versions of Exactly What It Says In The Title, free courtesy of publisher Agate's Digital imprint.
Quite frankly, this seems to misunderstand the point of what a croissant is, IMHO, and while I will not say that filling them with chicken salad to make sandwiches is necessarily an abomination unto $DEITYWHICHIDONTBELIEVEIN, I don't think that's really an idea in keeping with the spirit of croissant-hood, nor is braiding them into wreath shapes while still calling them croissants, (
croissant means "crescent" in French for a reason†, just so you know, and if you want to significantly deviate from what it means, you might as well just call your resulting dishes "puff pastry whatevers").
And there's a disappointing lack of photos in the portions I skimmed. But if you completely ignore the entire form follows function thing, there might possibly be some tasty variants of misnamed generic baked goods in here. YMMV.
Anyway, currently free, probably just until the weekend @
B&N (also
UK) &
Amazon (not available to Canadians, but also free in the
UK). Price-drop-check linkage for
iTunes &
Google Play (usually only available for the US; I think that's the right URL), where Agate freebies have also been turning up in recent weeks.
Description
From French cuisine to American brunches, croissants are a staple of many sumptuous meals. But few home cooks understand how to create the perfect balance of light, buttery dough with delicately flaky layers. Culinary instructor Dee Coutelle has been specializing in croissants for over 30 years, and will reveal her pastry secrets in this digital update of The Perfect Croissant.
In this delightful book, readers will find croissants surprisingly easy to create, mostly taking far less than an hour of working time. The first section of the book is devoted to the foundational recipe for the perfect croissant, providing helpful photographs and illustrations to demystify each step.
From there, The Perfect Croissant features over 70 recipes for fillings, toppings, and variations, including both sweet and savory options. Readers will find recipes for sweet apple turnovers, almond butter-filled pastries, Chicken en Croute (chicken wrapped in flaky croissant dough), and many more ideas within pages of each other. For cooks looking to experiment, the book contains a chapter on novel croissant forms, offering detailed instructions on how to create a croissant in exciting shapes.
The Perfect Croissant will liven up brunch receptions with pinwheel-shaped croissants filled with custard, spice up cocktail hour with egg-roll croissant hors d'oeuvres, and enrich dessert with chocolate dough croissants filled with liquored fudge,and topped with a chocolate glaze.
† It's a celebratory post-war-with-historical-religious-connotations victory food shape, therefore making it banned by modern sore loser fundamentalists who should probably just retaliate by appropriating the devouring of hot cross buns as a symbolic conquest or whatever.
