Lune: Croissants All Day, All Night
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Lune is a bakery in Melbourne, Australia, that is all about croissants and a very tight range of croissant cousins. It is renowned not only for the quality of its products, but for the fact that Kate Reid, the bakery’s founder, developed a method of making them that is entirely her own, reverse engineered as she developed the croissant she wanted.
“Reverse engineered” is Reid’s own phrase and one she does not use lightly. She has a degree in aerospace engineering, which she put to use for a time with a Formula One racing team. She put it to use in this book as well, developing yet another method of making laminated dough that does not rely on a bakery’s full range of equipment, such as dough sheeters.
That said, as Reid admits, even the process in this book “requires time, preparation, patience and commitment.” She will urge certain types of flour upon you, and the use of the very best quality cultured butter you can find.
The core recipe runs 12 very explicit pages, and that’s before Reid has you begin shaping the dough into croissants, pain au chocolats, Danish, escargot, kouign-amann, torsade, and Lune’s signature cruffins, which began as a way to use up pastry trims. There are flavor variations for all of these, and it comes as little surprise that Reid often ignores standard practice to produce them. The scorn she heaps on common ham and gruyere croissants is palpable.
If, as a pastry professional, you are disappointed to learn that Reid has not divulged Lune’s original methodology, please be assured that you can still benefit from an array of insights and ideas. Take for instance the Danish pastries she blind-bakes, using a silicone insert to create a shell that holds fresh fruits and other fillings that don’t belong in the oven. And those unsold, day-old croissants? She knows plenty of things to do with them.
This is a gorgeously inspiring book, full of strong photographs and abounding in ideas and expertise.
Hardcover. Color photographs throughout. Measurements are by weight.
