croissant

A croissant (UK: ; US: , ; French pronunciation: [kʁwa.sɑ̃] (listen)) is a buttery, flaky, viennoiserie pastry of Austrian and French origin, named for its historical crescent shape. Croissants and other viennoiserie are made of a layered yeast-leavened dough. The dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry.
Crescent-shaped breads have been made since the Renaissance, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly since antiquity. Croissants have long been a staple of Austrian and French bakeries and pâtisseries. In the late 1970s, the development of factory-made, frozen, pre-formed but unbaked dough made them into a fast food which can be freshly baked by unskilled labor. The croissant bakery, notably the La Croissanterie chain, was explicitly a French response to American-style fast food, and as of 2008 30–40% of the croissants sold in French bakeries and patisseries were baked from frozen dough.Croissants are a common part of a continental breakfast in many European countries.

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