Flaky, buttery croissant bread requires time, precision, and patience, but is a very rewarding baking project that will make your kitchen smell like a French boulangerie. (And is there any better smell than fresh bread?) I know making homemade pastry can seem intimidating, but I thoroughly break down the process for you, step by step, in the tutorial below. Any home baker—like me or you—can accomplish this.
What is Croissant Bread?
Croissant bread is exactly what it sounds like: croissant dough baked as bread. My inspiration for this recipe was this croissant loaf on Food52, but I used a scaled-down version of my own homemade croissants dough to produce just 1 loaf. Though I can’t promise how long your loaf will last… it doesn’t last long in my house! The other difference in my croissant bread recipe is we’re going to roll up the dough first, and then cut into rolls, instead of cutting strips and individually rolling them.
The result is an impressive loaf version of everyone’s favorite yeasted pastry, which smells and tastes like a croissant, but slices like bread. Incredible on its own, but try it as a grilled cheese, BLT, toasted with jam, or in your favorite breakfast strata recipe or French toast casserole!
Croissant Bread Details
- Texture: The texture of this croissant bread is melt-in-your-mouth soft and tender, with a crispy, flaky crust. Because it’s baked as bread in a loaf pan, it’s not quite as layered and crust-shattery (technical terms) as croissants, but it’s still very airy.
- Flavor: Blissfully buttery and slightly sweet—just try to keep your eyes from closing when you taste this, I’m not sure it’s possible!
- Ease: The great news is that making croissant bread is easier than making individual croissants. It requires no special ingredients, but it does require 3 rounds of 20-minute refrigerations and 2 rises. For these reasons, I categorize this as an advanced baking recipe. But I’m here to walk you through each step. You can absolutely make this!
- Time: Plan for this recipe to take just under 6 hours, plus some cooling time, which is considerably shorter than 12+ hours for my individual croissants. There’s resting time between most steps, which means most of the time is hands off. To develop all those flaky pastry layers, croissant dough needs to rest in the refrigerator often. It likes to nap, if you will.
Only 7 Ingredients Total
You need just 6 simple ingredients for the croissant bread dough: flour, butter, salt, yeast, milk, and sugar. The 7th ingredient is an egg to make an egg wash for brushing over the top to get that glossy golden sheen on the top of the loaf—much like pie crust and stromboli.
What is Laminated Dough?
Laminating dough is the process of folding butter into dough many times, which creates multiple alternating layers of butter and dough. (Similar to how we make biscuits, cheddar biscuits, and rough puff pastry, though today’s dough includes yeast.) When the laminated dough bakes, the butter melts and creates steam. This steam lifts the layers apart, giving us dozens of flaky, airy, buttery layers.
In my regular croissants and chocolate croissants recipes, we mix butter and flour together to make a butter block. With today’s croissant bread recipe, however, we’re lining pieces of butter down the dough so there’s no compact butter block needed.
4 Tips for Laminating This Dough
- It’s OK if there are air bubbles in the dough; your rolling pin will pop them.
- If the dough tears and butter is exposed, just sprinkle the exposed butter with flour.
- If the dough is impossible to roll, try flipping it over. If it’s still impossible to roll, cover and let it rest for 5 minutes before trying again, to let the gluten relax.
- There are 3 rounds of 20-minute refrigerations. Do NOT extend these times because the yeasted dough will puff up too much. The timer is your friend here!
Video & Photos: How to Make Croissant Bread
The full printable recipe is below, but this recipe involves quite a few steps, so I’m going to walk you through it with step-by-step photos. I’m leaving out photos of preparing the dough because you can see it come together in the video tutorial. I also have a separate video tutorial for How to Knead Dough, if you need extra help with that step.
Here is the dough after the 1st rise and then after you punch it down:
Now it’s time to flatten the dough and prepare it for lamination. Gently flatten the dough out into a 10×14-inch (25x35cm) rectangle using lightly floured hands to carefully stretch the dough. I recommend flattening it right onto a nonstick surface so you can literally pick it all up without the dough losing shape. Refrigerate this flattened dough for 20 minutes:
After 20 minutes in the refrigerator, the dough is about as pliable as the butter. Line the butter down the center third of the dough as pictured:
1st lamination: Fold one side over the butter:
Fold the other side over that, like you would fold a business letter:
Rotate the dough so the long edge is facing you:
Roll out into a 9×12-inch (23x30cm) rectangle. You can see the butter hiding in there:
Fold up like a business letter, cover, and then chill for 20 minutes:
2nd & 3rd lamination: After refrigerating, repeat lamination process above 2x with no dough chilling between each—rotate dough, roll out, fold like business letter, rotate dough, roll out, fold like a business letter. And then chill 1 last time for 20 minutes.
Final lamination: After that final refrigeration, repeat lamination 1x. Then roll out the dough into a 9×12-inch (23x30cm) rectangle for the last time:
Roll it up like a jelly roll cake or cinnamon rolls dough, starting from the shorter end:
Slice into 5 thick rolls. Look at all those layers!
Arrange in a greased loaf pan, cover, and let rise until puffy. Then brush with egg wash before baking:
No Two Loaves Look the Same
Keep in mind that your loaf may look exactly like or slightly different from these photos. Despite following the exact same recipe and directions, some of my test loaves looked more airy, or less flaky, or more layered. You can see the variety in these photos. So don’t be discouraged if yours looks different… just wait until you TASTE it!
See Your Croissant Bread!
Feel free to email or share your recipe photos with us on social media. 🙂
PrintCroissant Bread (Loaf)
- Prep Time: 4 hours, 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 6 hours, 30 minutes (includes cooling)
- Yield: 1 loaf
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: French
Description
Bakers of any skill level can use this thoroughly detailed recipe to make a beautifully flaky and golden brown loaf of homemade croissant bread. There are 3 rounds of 20-minute refrigerations. Do not break up the lamination steps and do not extend the refrigeration times because the dough will begin to over-expand.
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 cup (240ml) whole milk, warmed to about 110°F (43°C)
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons (7g) instant or active dry yeast (1 standard packet, see Notes)
- 3 Tablespoons (38g) granulated sugar
- 1 and 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 3 Tablespoons (43g) unsalted or salted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into 3 equal pieces
- 3 cups (375g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed and for lamination
Lamination
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) salted butter, slightly softened (see Notes)
Egg Wash
- 1 large egg, cold or room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon (15ml) water
Instructions
- Preliminary notes: Watch the video tutorial and use the step-by-step photos before you begin. Read the recipe instructions and notes before beginning. Make room in the refrigerator for your half baking sheet for steps 6–9.
- Prepare the dough: In a large ungreased mixing bowl, whisk the warm milk, yeast, and sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Cover and allow mixture to sit for about 5 minutes or until foamy on top. *If you do not own a mixer, you can do this in a large mixing bowl and in the next step, mix the dough together with a large wooden spoon/silicone spatula. A hand mixer works, but the sticky dough repeatedly gets stuck in the beaters. Mixing by hand with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula is a better choice.*
- Add the salt, butter, and 2 cups (250g) of flour. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, stopping and scraping down the bowl as needed to help the mixture combine. There may still be chunks of butter—that’s ok. Add remaining flour, scrape down the bowl as needed, and beat on low speed until a soft dough forms and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Dough will be very soft, but not overly sticky. Beat in 2–3 more Tablespoons of flour if dough seems very sticky. Avoid adding more flour than you need.
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly golfball-size) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading until it passes the windowpane test.
- 1st rise: Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or use nonstick spray. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides of the dough in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise in a relatively warm environment for 1.5–2 hours or until nearly double in size. (For a tiny reduction in rise time, see my answer to Where Should Dough Rise? in my Baking with Yeast Guide.)
- Flatten dough: Punch down the dough to release the air. Place dough on a silicone baking mat-lined, parchment paper-lined, or lightly floured baking sheet. (I highly recommend a silicone baking mat because you can roll the dough out in the next steps directly on top and it won’t slide all over the counter.) Gently flatten the dough out into a 10×14-inch (25x35cm) rectangle using lightly floured hands to carefully stretch, but not tear, the dough. Lightly cover and place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator, and allow the covered dough to rest and chill for 20 minutes. Do not extend this time.
- Meanwhile, prepare for lamination: Cut the salted butter into 1/4-inch thick slices and, as explained in the recipe note below, make sure the butter is not overly soft. It’s important to note the following 4 tips before you begin laminating in steps 8, 9, & 10: (1) It’s OK if there are air bubbles in the dough because your rolling pin will pop them. (2) If the dough tears and butter is exposed, just sprinkle the exposed butter with flour. (3) If the dough is impossible to roll, try flipping it over. If it’s still impossible to roll, cover and let it rest for 5 minutes before trying again, to let the gluten relax. And (4) Do not extend the refrigeration times, because the folded dough will begin to over-expand.
- 1st lamination: Remove dough from the refrigerator and set baking sheet aside. I like to keep the dough on the silicone baking mat when I’m rolling it because the mat is nonstick. Working with the longer (14-inch) edge in front of you, line butter down the center of the dough, covering the center third of the dough. Fold one dough edge over on top of butter, and fold other edge on top of that (like folding a business letter). Pinch/seal the two short ends to enclose butter inside. Rotate dough so the long edge is horizontally in front of you. Lightly flour the top of the folded dough and, using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out to a 9×12-inch (23x30cm) rectangle. Fold dough edges over on top like folding a business letter. Cover dough, place back on baking sheet, and refrigerate 20 minutes. Do not extend this time.
- 2nd & 3rd laminations: Remove dough from the refrigerator and set baking sheet aside. Rotate dough so the long edge is horizontally in front of you. Lightly flour the top of the folded dough and, using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out to a 9×12-inch rectangle. Fold dough edges over on top like folding a business letter. Rotate dough horizontally and repeat rolling out to 9×12 inches and folding like a business letter. Cover dough, place back on baking sheet, and refrigerate 20 minutes. Do not extend this time.
- Final lamination & shaping: Remove dough from the refrigerator and set baking sheet aside. Rotate dough so the long edge is horizontally in front of you. Lightly flour the top of the folded dough and using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out to a 9×12-inch rectangle. Fold dough edges over on top like folding a business letter. For the last time, rotate horizontally and roll out to 9×12 inches. Working from a 9-inch side, roll dough up like you would roll up a jelly roll cake or cinnamon rolls. Place 9-inch log on a cutting board and cut into 5 even rolls (just eyeball it, they don’t need to be perfectly even).
- 2nd rise: Grease a 9×5-inch (23x13cm) loaf pan. Place rolls, seam side down, in loaf pan. Cover tightly and allow to rise until slightly puffy, about 45–60 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C).
- Whisk egg wash ingredients together. Generously brush risen rolls/loaf with egg wash. Bake loaf for 1 hour until golden brown on top, loosely tenting with aluminum foil after 25 minutes to prevent the top from over-browning before the center can cook. For an accurate test of doneness, the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer reads the center of the loaf as 195°F (90°C). (Tip: Keep in mind that the bread will continue to cook for a few minutes as it cools.)
- Remove from the oven and place loaf pan on a wire rack. Cool for 30 minutes in the loaf pan. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to release the bread, and then remove bread from loaf pan and cool at least 15 more minutes directly on a wire rack before slicing and serving. (Bread tends to fall apart when sliced warm.) Bread may slightly deflate as it cools.
- Storing & freezing baked bread: Cover and store leftover croissant bread covered at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. You can also freeze it for up to 3 months and then thaw on the counter or overnight in the refrigerator. Warm up to your liking.
Notes
- Overnight Dough Instructions: After step 10, cover the shaped rolls in the loaf pan tightly and refrigerate for up to about 15 hours. At least 3 hours before you need the bread the next day, remove from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise on the counter for about 1–2 hours before baking. Alternatively, you can let the dough have its 1st rise (step 5) in the refrigerator overnight. Cover the dough tightly and place in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours. Remove from the refrigerator and allow the dough to fully rise for 2 more hours. Continue with step 6.
- Freezing Dough Instructions: The best way to successfully freeze and thaw this dough is after step 10. (Freezing/thawing before makes lamination difficult.) Cover and freeze shaped dough loaf (after step 10) for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator at least 3 hours before you need the bread, remove from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise on the counter for about 1–2 hours before baking.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Ruler or tape measure | Silicone Baking Mat (optional but recommended) | Rolling Pin | 12×17-inch Half Sheet Pan | 9×5-inch Loaf Pan | Pastry Brush
- Milk: Whole milk is ideal, but you can swap a lower-fat or non-dairy milk. Avoid nonfat milk.
- Yeast: You can use active dry or instant yeast in this recipe. Follow all of the same instructions. If using active dry yeast, the rise times are usually *slightly* longer, but not much. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Butter: You can use either unsalted or salted butter in the dough, but be sure to use salted butter in the lamination step. The butter in the dough can be softened to room temperature, even overly softened is fine. However, the butter for the lamination does require your attention. It’s important to make sure your lamination butter is not too cold/hard and you don’t want it too greasy/soft either, because it needs to be about as pliable as the dough to incorporate into it. Sometimes I use a cooking thermometer just to check what temperature my butter and dough are for the lamination step, and it’s ideal they both register *around* 60°F (15°C). Being about the same temperature helps the butter and the dough laminate easily.
- Can I Halve or Double This Recipe? No. Follow the dough recipe precisely as written. If 1 loaf is too much, freeze any extras. If you want 2 loaves, make the dough 2x separately.
- Can I Add a Filling? I tried jam and cinnamon sugar (1/4 teaspoon cinnamon with 2 Tbsp granulated sugar). The only one that worked fairly well was the cinnamon sugar. Anything wet like jam will create too much moisture and the bottom of the loaf doesn’t bake very well. Plus, you need quite a lot to really taste it, which makes rolling up the dough fairly messy and difficult. You can absolutely try adding something dry like the cinnamon sugar, chopped nuts, or even chocolate chips! Spread a thin layer on the dough before rolling it up into a log in step 10.
I was really intimated by this recipe because I’d heard croissants were hard, but it was very doable and not nearly as complicated as I expected – the timing of laminating worked out out perfectly for my newborn’s nap :). I do recommend, as Sally does, watching the video for anyone about to start it; very helpful!
I’ve been a huge fan of your croissant recipe, and this loaf is just as good in a fraction of the time! Baked up great and my family loved it. Already plotting to make it again this week.
My family loved this recipe! The lamination process was new for me but your detailed instructions made it much easier. It was flaky, buttery, and delicious! I will definitely be making this again!
I was very hesitant to make this. Totally outside of my comfort zone. But so glad I did. My family LOVED it and want it again! I can’t wait to keep trying to perfect it. Mine was a little dense. But next time I want to pay better attention to the butter temperature.
Making this bread was surprisingly easy with delicious results. The detailed directions and step by step pictures were definitely a big help.
This bread was absolutely delicious and a showstopper! It is very time consuming but most of the time is hands off time used for rising or chilling. Word of warning, make sure you can meet the specific timing needs without conflicts of schedule. The end product is amazing!
Great flavor and wonderful, easy-to-follow instructions!
This was so delicious and worth the time involved for a great treat. We had a surprise snow day this past weekend and I was glad to have all the ingredients on hand to make. Will be making again!
I have been intimidated by recipes that require lamination, but Sally’s video and easy to follow instructions helped so much! It does take some time; however, biting into a warm slice of this bread will make it all worth it!
This is the best croissant recipe I have ever made. It was so easy (the step-by-step instructions and video were incredibly helpful) and just melted in my mouth. This will be my go to croissant recipe moving forward. I will be making this for EVERYONE I know.
This was out of my comfort zone but made for a fun Sunday project! My bread is currently cooling but I can’t wait to dig in!
Tastes great and actually went really well. I made it twice. Once to eat at home and once for my wife to take to a potluck. The first time the middle seemed a little undone despite the temperature being 200F on my thermometer but it was still delicious.
I was very impressed with how this came out. It was time consuming, but not difficult. I thought it wasn’t going to proms together since my dough was wetter than Sally’s in the video, but the outcome is delicious. We have been enjoying it on its own and with a swipe of Nutella to mimic a chocolate croissant. I will definitely make this again when I have a long period of time free, it’s a great weekend project.
This was my first time laminating dough, and the directions and video made it very easy to learn! The dough rose well and was easy to work with. The loaf turned out beautifully and tasted delicious!
What a delicious, buttery treat! I never would have thought myself capable of making something like this but thanks to the clear directions, it turned out perfectly. My house smelled like a bakery and I got a ton of compliments. Will definitely make again!
I can’t believe I made this and it looks so beautiful! I read every step and watched the video, re-watching the video as I endeavored each step. It was a little labor intensive but I had the whole day devoted to it. I have never had much luck with any sort of yeast recipe and was doubtful mine would turn out, but it turned out absolutely perfect! This might last a day in our house!
This recipe is amazing! It takes a long time altogether, but the instructions, photos and recipe video made it so easy and far less intimidating. I will DEFINITELY be making again, probably with some chocolate chips to mimic pain au chocolat.
This was so good! I could keep eating it forever. I love how the recipe is laid out so clearly so that even though it’s my first time laminating dough, I didn’t struggle at all
Absolutely gorgeous to look at and delicious to eat! I had never made any type of laminated dough before but, the detailed instructions made it EASY! I’ll definitely make it again!
I made this and was so surprised how easy it was and the results were amazing. I really want to try croissants because it gave me confidence. I would love to put chocolate in next time so it’s like a Pain au chocolat. I also appreciated the video because if you start feeling lost or overwhelmed with the lamination process you can watch the video.
I am a fairly new baker and I wanted to challenge myself by doing this recipe. I was so grateful for the video and step by step instructions. This recipe did take me the full 6 hours to make . I enjoyed the process and the outcome. I did find it was more dense then the pictures showed , so I am thinking I did not do something quite right. It is quite delicious I will definitely try it again!!
I just made this croissant loaf again, but using a compound butter. I blitzed 1.2 ounces freeze dried strawberries into a fine powder, blended it with the butter and used for both the dough and the lamination process. The dough was a little softer to work with, likely because of the butter texture, but also because we’re in the middle of a heatwave. The result was a flaky bread with a hint of strawberry. (The pink flecks were pretty too.) Great with whipped cream cheese! SO much fun to play around with this recipe. I think I’ll try a cinnamon spice butter next.
AWESOME. Sally you are right. Smells amazing in my home and it lasted less than one day. We all loved it. Will be in my list on frequent recipes. I added chocolate chips on the last roll, so good, just a hint of chocolate flavor. I felt like a professional.
This recipe is amazing. Croissant bread is so much easier than you’d imagine, just need some muscle! The taste is perfect, mouthwatering and smells wonderful while baking!!
I took my finished loaf to work to share with my coworkers a workers. Needless to say there was nothing left to bring home. I will definitely be making this again.
I loved this bread! I was a little intimidated about laminating the dough but I watched the video tutorial and that encouraged me. Thank you Sally!!
I loved making this bread with a method that was new to me, I’ve been making bread for over 50 years. The directions were easy to follow and the results were delicious. My only issue was how to slice the finished bread so that it didn’t fall apart in places.
Your website is one of my go to because it has never failed to give a delicious result.
Is there a reason to cut it into five pieces before putting into the loaf pan? Could you just put the whole loaf in the pan after rolling it up?
Also, after cutting into pieces, could you just place those pieces on a tray, let rise and bake, to make croissant rolls?
Thanks!
Hi Jeff, So the laminated layers inside aren’t enclosed and can rise up, making the loaf look just as layered as it tastes. And, really, without doing so, the layers inside won’t have as much “breathing room” to expand. We haven’t tested baking the five pieces individually.
This was delicious!!
I enjoyed making it and really had fun laminating the dough!!
This was my first attempt at croissant dough and it was delicious! I had to step away for a few hours before finishing the final lamination, but it still worked out great. I don’t have a large loaf pan so I rolled the dough the long way and cut cinnamon roll sized chunks. I baked some in a mini loaf pan and some laying flat as cinnamon rolls.
Amazing recipe! Fun to make and end result is delicious!
This recipe is fantastic. It is time consuming but oh so worth it. The end result is a flaky buttery bread. Dense but soft. I couldn’t stop eating it!
This was absolutely delicious!! It was very easy to make. Loved the buttery, flaky layers.
Awsome recipe. Very happy with the result for the forst time I do laminates dough.
I was hesitant about the time factor but it was totally worth it! My husband could barely wait for the cooling time to end. I even experimented using sourdough starter and less flour and it was still an airy, buttery, delicious croissant loaf. Thank you for sharing the recipe!
I tried this recipe. Taste was excellent. However, bread was dense, layers not showing well, and did not rise as much. Yeast was in code. What could have I done wrong?
Hi Carmela, did you set aside enough time for the dough to rise in both rising steps? It’s possible the temperatures were too cool and the dough just needed more time to rise.
This was certainly at dinner tonight with those flaky, buttery layers. I can’t wait to try it again with the cinnamon sugar filling!