Paul Hollywood has got a nice, new series on Food Network, where he travels cities and tastes/makes all sorts of good bakes. Since he visited a place in Paris, where croissants are made daily, I got excited. I thought I must try, it’s not like I have no time for  16 hour bake, right?

Obviously, I chose Hollywood’s recipe. This one:

http://paulhollywood.com/recipes/croissants/

I started yesterday, followed all the instructions, did as I was told. This lunch time there were going to be fresh croissants. I realized they might  not be as spectacular as I’d have hoped when they failed to rise, when the recipe said they’d double in size within 2 hours. After 3 I still placed them in hot oven. They then rose alright, but nowhere near doubled. Lots of butter melted out, the smell was great.  In the end they tasted ok, but they were not light and puffy, like they should have been. Crispy on top, buttery, but not the real deal. I immediately thought- the yeast. Hollywood boy always maintains in his recipes, that dry yeast is BETTER, more convenient, easily. Sorry, Paul,  in my view it’s not better.  Fresh yeast makes doughnuts like clouds, fab pizza dough and probably awesome croissants. I was still chewing on mine, while immediately checking what did Dorota from mojewypieki.com had to say. A lot, she did, she tried 3 recipes and then settled on one from some posh French boy, who recommended FRESH yeast. Which is exactly what I’ll be doing next time I’ll make croissants. Thumbs down Hollywood!