Jalapeño honey & brie sourdough turnovers have a delicate croissant base, and make an amazing appetizer or starter.

The Best Part About This Recipe…

By building your levain the previous night, you can mix these beauties in the morning and have them ready to be served that evening!  Almost unheard of for a sourdough croissant dough.    The trick?  Laminating a lean dough and working with with your levain at a ratio of 1:5:5 so that it can proof overnight without risk of over proofing.  I have also opted to use my rye starter for this recipe, and have used the rye portion of the dough to build my levain.   This has resulted in the lightest, fluffiest dough I have ever worked with, as well as proofing impressively quick.  

Inspiration

This recipe was inspired by two other recipes.   One, my Spin On The Standard Apple Cheese Tart, built on laminating a lean pizza dough, and the other recipe, the ‘Laminated Honey Rye’ created by Arnaud Delmontel, from Daniel Leader’s book ‘Living Bread’, and shared by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.

I started working with a lean dough to make my croissants, and for my tart bases for two reasons. 

1. Impatience! Have you ever made a sourdough croissant base?  It is a long process.  The thought of waiting 24 + hours for my dough to develop nearly brought tears to my eyes. The lean dough dramatically reduces fermentation time as well as proofing time.
2. I love the idea of a sourdough croissant but I don’t want it to taste sour.  The problem with a long fermentation time is that it tends to yield a more “sour” dough.  That is fine if that is what you are after. But myself, I don’t enjoy a sour croissant, turnover, or dessert tart.  

How To Laminate Butter into Dough

Laminating butter into dough is when you layer butter and dough together, by rolling it out, and folding it over on itself several times.  Typically this technique is applied to an enriched dough.  I will go over the whole process later, in a few easy to follow steps.  If this is your first time lamenting dough pack some patience, there is a bit of a learning curve.  Expect to struggle a little for 3-4 attempts before success.  Your initial results will absolutely be delicious, but it may lack some of the desired qualities, until you get the technique right.  The goal is to achieve distinct, light layers throughout, with almost a web like appearance. 

Obstacles to Achieving Beautifully Layered, Laminated Dough…

• Rushing, you must take your time rolling the dough, think of it as a meditative process.
• Over heating the butter and having it melt into the dough, this happens if your working environment is too hot or you do not take the time to chill the dough between rounds.
• Being too aggressive in your rolling and tearing the dough exposing the butter.  This is where things get messy, and what you want to avoid the most. If this does happen though, by all means still bake it, it will just be less than perfect.  It is the taste that counts the most. 
• If any of the above happens to you the first few times laminating dough, don’t be hard on yourself, you in good company; the company of just about anyone who has ever made croissants, and laminated a dough.

Laminating Butter Into Dough VS. Laminating Dough

• The above technique is not to be confused with the general lamination of dough that is performed to build strength in a sourdough and done at some point within the coil fold or stretch and fold process.  In the latter type of lamination, you prepare the counter with some cold water, and literally stretch the dough into a big sheet as far as you can with out tearing, and fold the dough back onto itself before placing in a dish prior to subsequent coil folds. 

Steps to Laminating Butter Into a Dough

Roll out The Butter – For this recipe you will be using 226 grams of butter, the equivalent of 2 sticks. The higher quality, higher fat butter, the better.  I use salted butter for this recipe.  Begin by slicing the sticks of butter in half lengthwise, place them between layers of parchment paper, and allow to sit at room temp for about 10 min till softening slightly.  With a rolling pin, begin rolling out the butter between the parchment until it is about 7 ½ inch square block of even thickness.  To square the sides, you can use a butter knife or bench scraper.  When done place in refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes. 

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Roll out The Dough– For the first round you want to roll out your dough so it is a bit more than double the width of you butter, and a bit longer than the butter square.  You want to be able to fold the dough over the butter and seal it all around so it doesn’t leak out.  A well floured surface will ensure your dough does not stick to the counter.  You can also roll out on floured parchment if you are concerned about dough sticking. 

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Layer in The Butter– Place your butter on top of your dough, in the center, and fold two outer sides on top of it.  Gently press down on the edges to seal the butter in. Rotate you dough so it is running lengthwise on your parchment. Reapply flour to both parchment, and top of dough to avoid sticking.  You are rolling the dough out this time so it is just a bit under 3 x the length of what you started with. 

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Roll dough with butter between layers gently– Fold as you would a letter going into the mail. 

Refrigerate 15-20 min if you are in a warm climate you may want to use the freezer.

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Roll again lengthwise, as you did in the previous step, fold as you would an envelop, once more.

Refrigerate again, 15-20 minutes.

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Final roll- This rollout may require a short rest 5-10 min midway through the process if dough is too elastic and fighting back.

Preparing Turnovers

Cut the dough with pizza roller– Cut off any excess or rough edges.  This recipe makes 12 turnovers, so you want to cut your dough with a pizza roller into 12 squares. Next, fold your squares gently into a triangle, and slice as shown below. You are cutting at both ends as though you are separating the center, from an outer frame, leaving the top point attached. Unfold your triangle and bring the left side of the loose dough to the right, and the right side of the loose dough to the left. In the center is where you will place your honey, brie, and jalapeno. You may top the dough prior to proofing, or wait until just prior to baking. If it is a bit warm, you may want to leave topping until later, so the cheese is not at room temperature too long.

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Cover lightly with plastic wrap sprayed with oil, and allow to proof for about 4 hours– You want your dough to have puffed up to about double the height. Temperature plays a big roll here, the warmer it is, the faster it will proof. Always proof between 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit, or 24-29 degrees Celsius. Unless cold proofing overnight in refrigerator.

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Example Schedule For Building Levain, And Proofing Dough

• 4:00 PM- On the day before baking, revive your starter at a 1:1:1 ratio.
• 8:00-10:00 PM- Build your overnight levain. Because it is fermenting for a longer stretch of time, you want to build it with more flour and water and less starter. This will slow the fermentation process. for this recipe I use the rye portion of my flour, and build my levain at a 1:5:5 ratio. I would love to take credit for tip, but I totally adopted it from @allyoukneadisbread. You can always apply this tip to general feeding of your starter as well. It can be especially helpful in warmer months, and in general, to revitalize the bacteria present in your starter.
• 7:00 AM- Mix your dough; flour, water, salt, honey, and levain.  Rest for 15-20 minutes, mix further, and rest 30 minutes.
• 7:45 AM- Stretch and fold.
• 8:15-8:30 AM- General, sourdough lamination (not with butter, as described in italics early in this post) to build strength in your dough. Place in square Pyrex dish. 
• 9:00 AM- Coil fold
• 9:30 AM- Coil fold
• 10:00 AM- Coil fold
• 10:30 AM- Bulk ferment.
• 12:00 PM- Laminate dough with butter.
• 1:00 PM- Slice dough, shape turnovers, then final proof. You may top with honey, brie, and jalapeno’s now, or if the temperature is warmer, leave the toppings until just prior to baking.
• 5:00-6:00 PM- Bake for 20 minutes at 425, reduce to 375 for an additional 15-20 minutes.  Cool for five minutes, slice and enjoy.

Do You Have a Sourdough Starter?

Like all the recipes featured on Bubbling Starter, this bread is made with a sourdough starter. To learn how to make your own; check out Beginners Guide to Creating a Bubbling Starter.