magazine
Say non to margarine – why buttery croissants are best
Discover why butter croissants are prized in France, how to tell them from margarine versions, and the baker behind the country’s best croissant
The croissant is, as we know, seen as a staple on the French breakfast table, yet your Food noter’s experience shows that many people tend to reserve such pastries for a weekend treat.
The idea that every French person scoffs a calorific pastry every single morning is nothing more than a convenient cliché.
Some people may treat colleagues to a heaving bag of croissants or pains au chocolat to mark a workplace birthday or special occasion, while many early-rising artisans drop into their nearest boulangerie for a rapid munch – washed down with a double espresso – before heading off to work.
Recent studies have shown that while the French as a nation are still devout croissant fans – La Confédération nationale de la boulangerie-pâtisserie estimates that 2.5billion are sold every year – the pain au chocolat and baguette viennoise (a slightly sweet brioche-style delight) have overtaken the croissant in popularity.
Perhaps one of the reasons that they are consumed in relative moderation is because they are not especially healthy – at least in their more authentic form made with butter in order to achieve that rich flakiness.
I increasingly see croissants nature – plain croissants made with margarine rather than du beurre. They are easy to spot: margarine croissants are curved, while butter ones are straight.
Margarine is cheaper, more stable and easier to work with, but some bakers keep butter croissants straight because shaping the curve is considerably more time-consuming.
Personally, I find margarine croissants bland, stodgy and distinctly unglamorous. Judges at a recent competition in Poitiers to find France’s best croissant agree: entries must be made with butter.
Twenty contestants were given identical ingredients and five hours to demonstrate their craftsmanship.
The winner, Dylan Delmaire, a young baker from Versailles, impressed jury president Xavier Bordet. “You need to know how to layer the butter dough
as evenly and as thinly as possible to achieve that crisp texture,” the judge told France 3. “The advantage of butter is that it absorbs flavours.”
Once you choose butter over ‘marge’, you may as well go for the best: Delmaire used Charentes-Poitou PDO butter – one of the finest beurres in France.
