Quick Pizza Dough Croissants

Pizza made from scratch with homemade dough is fantastic. Absolutely delicious. I could almost eat it everyday of the week. However, there comes a point when I am all pizza'd out and I still have leftover pizza dough in the fridge. At this point, I decide to make another incredible european culinary invention; croissants!

The beauty of this recipe is that you really need only two ingredients; dough and butter. Lots of butter. Egg wash is also useful to make them nice and shiny but it is not absolutely necessary. I use 3/4 pizza dough and 1/4 butter. I simply weigh out my leftover dough, divide the weight by three and measure out this weight in butter. The quantity below would be enough for eight small croissants:

Ingredients:

• 300g (0.661387 pounds) leftover pizza dough

• 100g (0.220462 pounds) butter
• One egg, beaten, for eggwash

I use a basic yeast risen pizza dough. Authentic croissants use a slightly richer yeast risen dough with milk and eggs but pizza dough has a similar consistency and will yield delicious results. You don't have to use the same recipe as me, as long as it is yeast risen, and has the springy consistency of a normal pizza dough.

Here's my recipe:

• 375ml (1 1/2 cups) warm water
• 2 teaspoons (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast
• 60ml (1/4 cup) olive oil, plus extra for brushing
• 600g (4 cups) plain flour 1 teaspoon
• Pinch of caster sugar
• Salt

Combine the water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes or until foamy. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture and oil. Use a round-bladed knife in a cutting motion to mix until the mixture is combined. Use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl. Brush a bowl lightly with oil. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in the prepared bowl and turn to coat in oil.

Roll your dough into a rough square shape with a thickness of 3/4 centimetre ( 1/3 inch).

Slice your butter and arrange it in a square in the middle of the dough.

Fold the corners of the dough into the middle to enclose the butter.

Roll the dough into a rectangle.

Fold the rectangle like you would fold a letter. Bring the bottom side one third of the way up the rectangle then fold the top side back over. There should be three layers.

Rotate the dough 90 degrees. The bottom edge should now be on the left or right side. Then roll the dough into another rectangle.

Fold as before

Compete steps 6 and 7 twice more. Ensure that you rotate the dough before you roll the dough each time. Some recipes recommend chilling after each fold however I have found they work well without it. (My housemates absolutely love them and can never wait to dig in so I omitted the chilling and found they still work perfectly.)

Roll into a square with a thickness of 1/2 centimetre (1/5 inch).

Cut into triangles. They work well if they are about 15cm (6 inches) long and about 10-12cm (4 to 5") at the base however I've made mine slightly smaller in the picture. I also cut small slits in the base to help get the right shape when rolling.

Fold the base a tiny way up the triangle then roll the rest of the way up. Be very gentle. Do not crush the butter layers. Then shape the croissants into crescents. I would recommend leaving them to rise for 2 hours, however, making this recipe for impatient house mates has taught me that this step is not absolutely necessary. You will still get flakey, buttery croissants without it. Lightly brush beaten egg over croissants if you want nice shiny brown croissants (otherwise they look a little pale and dull but will still taste fantastic).

Bake in a preheated oven at 200C (400F) fan forced for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!