Sacre Bleu: French Baker Makes Croissants Sans Butter.

[mawnansmiff]

Like a Cornish pasty without the beef, an apple pie without the cream, a pizza without the mozzarella, somethings just shouldn't be messed with but a certain French baker wants to buck the trend and flog croissants that he made without butter .

Having sat outside a café in Paris in the 80's enjoying France's famous delicious pastry I can only wonder what these concoctions might taste like, not at all like the real thing I'd guess.

And it's not just croissants that are missing that vital bovine component, all his output is made with some concoction of vegetable oils .

Methinks there will be a revolution......again

Why France is finding vegan croissants hard to stomach

The idea of butter-free patisseries appeals to some but horrifies dairy farmers and traditionalists.

www.bbc.co.uk

Jay.

 

[simong]

Luckily for me, I buy my buttered croissants from Marks & Spencer.
Yet another reason not to move to France.

 

[mawnansmiff]

Luckily for me, I buy my buttered croissants from Marks & Spencer.

So you're posh then eh?

It's lowly Asda for me

Jay.

 

[JOHN72]

Well, you know, they also want wine and other non-alcoholic distillates. All this is absurd. But absurdity is very fashionable in our current zombie society.

 

[Sigmund]

I dont see this taking off in my lifetime other than some specialty shops.

 

[LotusEater]

I dont see this taking off in my lifetime other than some specialty shops.

American soccer Moms might give them a try but I can’t imagine any self respecting Frenchman eating them.

 

[simong]

So you're posh then eh?

It's lowly Asda for me

Jay.

Hardly, I live in a skip Jay.
Not quite true but fair to say 'I'm in the gutter but looking up at the stars!'
Asda's the other side of town for me, whilst Marks's is only a 2 minute walk. I find more bargains in Marks's than anywhere else! Get there around elevenses and they start putting the discount 'yellow labels' on.
It's swings and roundabouts though, their croissants are never on offer.

 

[simong]

American soccer Moms might give them a try but I can’t imagine any self respecting Frenchman eating them.

What does a 'soccer mum' mean exactly? Serious question!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

What does a 'soccer mum' mean exactly? Serious question!

Soccer mom - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_mom

 

[Bbailey324]

Kind of like vegan restaurants here in Texas. They make a lot of noise and usually go out of business before long. Just not much actual market for it here.

 

[shanez]

Vegan.

How do know someone is vegan?

Oh they'll fucking tell you.

 

[OzPiper]

Most likely gluten-free too
To be dunked into the ersatz soy latte made from dandelion root

 

[karam]

If it tastes good then I'll have it provided the ingredients don't need to go through absurd levels of processing to be made to resemble something they're not (in this case butter).

Generally my principle is keeping it simple and avoiding things that need complicated processing that my grandma couldn't go herself if she needed to.

Case in point: sunflower vs olive oil. For sunflower oil the seeds need to be heated to mobilise the oil, but due to how inefficient this is (and bad for taste), oil is extracted with solvents. Olive oil is literally as simple as crushing olives and separating the oil from water and solids by centrifugation, in the deep past (think Bible times) olive oil was simply skimmed off the top of crushed olives.

 

[briarblues]

I hate to tell you all this, buy after 40" years in the food / pastry industry the substitution of butter to "vegetable oils" and the like has been going on for a long time.

Thanks all those that years ago told us that butter was "bad fat". Then Thank those that told us trans fats are bad. Oh wait a minute..... there is good trans fat and bad trans fat...... wait ... what?? Butter is now a good fat?

Of course it is ... it always was.

 

[mawnansmiff]

Olive oil is literally as simple as crushing olives and separating the oil from water and solids by centrifugation

Funny you should say that, only 2 days ago I watched something on TV that explained to process of extracting oil from olives in Italy.

It was all rather complicated involving the olives being pickled in brine for a period before they could be pressed else the oil would be too bitter to consume.

I never knew that.

Jay.

 

[Flatfish]

So you're posh then eh?

It's lowly Asda for me

Jay.

I'm more of an Aldi man myself.
I was horrified to see my normal shop was over £170. It used to be about £80 - £90.

I'm not buying butterless croissants.

 

[karam]

It was all rather complicated involving the olives being pickled in brine for a period before they could be pressed else the oil would be too bitter to consume.

I never knew that.

Jay.

That's odd, I never heard about that either. What I saw in a small but commercial-size olive mill in Greece was the olives being passed from a few water baths to clean them, then crushed, then the paste pressed, then the oil being separated out by two steps of continuous centrifugation and put into 17L cans, no brining of any sort. The smell was divine, in the end we bought a can too

 

[briarblues]

I believe the process for creating olive oil depends on the type of olives plus the stage of ripeness plus what the intended end product is intended to become. Another factor, so I am lead to understand is, how fast the picked olives get processed. The faster they go from picked to processing the better. Any duration of "storage" lessens the end quality.

One of my "bucket list" things to do is visit an olive oil orchard and processing facility, in Italy. Maybe this year????

 

[Sigmund]

So far as I know the good quality, first and second cold pressed product is made from picked, cleaned olives and pressed cold. Ive never heard of brining olives for olive oil.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I was horrified to see my normal shop was over £170

Mine is roughly £55-£75 per fortnight.....and I live alone!

That said, I only usually eat once a day.

Jay.