-I'm gonna tell you a little bit
about the croissant.
So, the croissant --
it's something simple,
but a good croissant is
actually pretty rare to get.
A good croissant, to me,
has a lot of different things.
I'm gonna show you what
a good croissant is for me.
First, when we look
at a croissant, of course,
the outside is very important.
It should have
a nice golden color.
The shape should be consistent.
It really should be
consistent.
And it should feel light.
It should, like,
feel very light.
You should see the flaky layers
building on the outside here.
So, it's a little detail,
but it's important for me --
the tip should be on the bottom.
It finishes the croissant.
It should be, not tucked in,
but on the bottom
so it's not too crispy.
So, when you cut it,
you should hear this, like,
little crunch and flake.
And then when I look inside,
this is what we call
the honeycomb
because it look exactly
like a honeycomb.
You have these little air
pockets inside the croissant.
It's a pretty nice croissant.
So you see this white
little spot right here?
That's -- the croissant
has started drying out.
So you should have a very thin
layer, like you have right here.
When I look at a croissant
first, I smell it.
And it should smell
a little bit of acidity.
You should smell
the butteriness.
And the butter
is also very important.
The butter is gonna give
the textures, the extra flavor,
and the smell of the croissant,
so we use high-quality butter --
you know, a big piece.
It's 84% fat content,
so very high fat content.
The more fat content you have,
the less water you have
in the butter,
the better the quality is.
In our croissant,
we use our own levain
that I created eight years ago
when --
before we opened the bakery.
Levain is essentially
a fermentation
of flour and water, simply.
And it takes time to build it.
It takes time to develop it.
In our kitchen,
we call it our baby.
It's called baby
because it's very sensitive.
Our baby has a name.
We have, like, three different
ones in every single location.
So in New York,
they call "ABC."
In L.A., they call "Baby Cher,"
"Baby Beyoncé."
So they give them
some fancy name.
The levain is the flavor
of the croissant.
It's the life,
the heart of the croissant.
So we have to fit it
every day --
fitting the levain meaning
adding a little bit more flour,
a little bit more water
to the levain every single day.
Every little step
is very important
when you make a croissant.
There's like, hundreds
and hundreds of things
that can go wrong,
but I love it because it --
it's a life, and it changes
every single day.
So you need to adapt.
You need to feel it.
You need to touch it.
You need to smell it.
You need to eat it to know
what a great croissant is.
So it is a commitment.
It is something so simple.
It's been around for, like,
centuries,
but it something so important
for me as a pastry chef
to have perfect and to make sure
that the quality is there
every single morning.
So every location
take a cross section,
they take a photo,
and they send it to me.
I have hundreds and hundreds
of photos of the cross section
of a croissant on my phone.
After talking about it,
after making it,
after seeing it,
after smelling it,
of course, you have to eat it.
And that's
the most important part --
eating it.
So I will say a good croissant
should have flakes.
And you see all these flakes
right here.
This is the evidence
of a murder.
You cannot hide them.
A good croissant
should have flakes.
And it should be
all over your hands,
all over yourself,
when you eat it.
The flakes are very important.
That's the layers
of the croissant.
This one's actually pretty good,
but it's not perfect.
I'm still looking for
the perfect croissant every day.
I think I'll keep looking for it
for the rest of my life.
Cheers.
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