International Croissant Day: Learn the secret of a perfect French pastry - from Kinsale and Dublin bakers
Ingrid Kelly and Benjamin Lebon business partners at Seed Bakery Kinsale.
Not since St Patrick expelled the snakes and converted the country to the church of Rome has there been a greater revolution in Irish culture than the transition from tea to coffee, and the humble croissant has rode in on its coattails.
Today, Tuesday, January 30, is International Croissant Day, this cornerstone of the French patisserie is celebrated across the globe.
In Ireland, there are increasing numbers of top-quality French bakeries opening up and their produce is a world away from those early attempts at gallic baking. Last summer, Kinsale added Seeds Bakery to its impressive array of culinary hotspots and what an addition it has been.
“There has been a great response from locals,” says the beautifully- named Benjamin leBon. “During the summer we know we’re going to be busy so the true test comes in the winter months and the locals have been very supportive.”
Benjamin first arrived in Ireland “to party” in 2006. The visit turned out to be life-changing.
“I met my partner,” says the Breton. “She is from Cork. We moved to France and then lived in the West Indies for a short period before moving back here and I opened a wholesale bakery six years ago.” Before baking, Benjamin dabbled in various professions including teaching and sales. Though the sales role allowed him to indulge his passion for travel, he admits that he “didn’t like that at all”.
“When I was a student I used to work in bakeries and I remembered being fond of it,” he says. “I always liked starting early and finishing early and everyone is always happy to go to the bakery. It’s not like the dentist. It’s warm and it smells good so it has loads of boxes ticked in the feelgood column.”
For most people, getting up before the crack of dawn is one reason not to become a baker but for the last 12 years, this has been Benjamin’s lot.
“I have one team that gets in at 4.30 in the morning,” says the 42-year-old. “They bake all the pastries and some cakes and then another team starts at 12. They are in charge of the bread.”
All 12 members of his team are well-versed in the baking of the perfect croissant. So what’s the secret?
“Good ingredients and then the process,” he says. “When I am teaching someone to make a croissant I tell them it’s cold, cold, cold and cold. You need a very cold dough, then, time, a lot of time. The croissants ferment for about eight hours and that’s what gives you the flavour. We have little tents that go over them to save them from draughts which might put a skin on them. So under those tents, they can prove gently. That means at half four in the morning when the team comes in they can go into the oven.”
Romain Tessier gives his croissants even longer.
“It takes about two days,” says the owner of the ArtyBaker in Dublin. “So for example, we’d start on Wednesday at 3 am with Friday’s croissant in mind. They’ll mix the dough on the Wednesday, leave it to rest overnight, the next day they will laminate it with butter to create all the layers, shape it and leave it to rest overnight again before baking it on Friday morning.”
Romain, who hails from Tours in the Loire Valley, has been baking since he was a teenager.
“When I was 14, I had to do an internship,” he recalls. “So I did it with a friend of mine in a bakery and I really enjoyed it. Two years later, I quit school and did an apprenticeship. You start at sixteen and do three weeks in a bakery and one week at school and that lasts for a minimum of two years before you get your Diploma as a Baker and Pastry Chef.
"After that, I worked in an antique bakery with a wood fire, which was very good and I learnt a lot.”
His qualifications and skills have taken him all over the world. In his early twenties, he was already head baker at the five-star Savoy Hotel in London.
He spent another five years in the Hotel Café Royal and appeared on Channel 4’s in 2018.
His talent was spotted by a hotel owner from Kuwait who managed to persuade both him and his wife, Suzanne, to move there. Then, covid struck.
“We had to leave and come back to Europe,” he recalls. “But it was quite difficult to find a job, so we agreed whoever found the job first, we would move there.”
Luckily for the residents of three Dublin suburbs, Suzanne found a job in the Irish capital. Despite his impressive CV, Romain struggled to find work. And then one day he went for a coffee.
“I met a guy in Sandycove who had a coffee shop with a big warehouse at the back,” he recalls. “He offered me the chance to produce from the warehouse and sell through his café. That’s how we started.”
Six months later, Romain opened his first ArtyBaker in Dalkey. Since then, he has opened in Kimmage and Sandycove, where it is rumoured residents have seen an increase in waist size. But nobody is complaining.
“The beauty of baking is that you learn every time you have a new employee come through your door or you work in other places,” says Benjamin.
“I learned loads in France obviously, but I also learnt a lot in the West Indies and even more when I moved back here. You can never stop learning and people are always willing to pass on the knowledge.”
And a very tasty knowledge it is too.
