Lamination layers sheets of butter between dough to create flaky layers. A single croissant usually contains about 25 to 30% butter by weight, often equating to one or two tablespoons of butter per pastry. Extra-large croissants may use three sticks of butter for eight croissants, roughly three tablespoons per unit, while some recipes divide similar butter amounts into smaller croissants for higher yield. A recipe with 28 to 30% butter produces richer flavor and proper flakiness. Croissants made with less than 25% butter tend to be breadier, less flaky, and blander. Choose butter with over 82% butterfat, ideally 84–86% European-style butter, for best results.
But you might ask, how much butter actually ends up in a single croissant? While it depends on several factors like the size of the croissant, the butter's fat content, and your particular recipe, a single croissant usually contains about 25 to 30% butter per weight, and sometimes more (looking at you, French pastry shops). This can equate to upwards of a tablespoon or two of butter per individual croissant.
For extra-large croissants, for instance, a recipe may call for 3 sticks of butter for an eight-croissant yield, which is approximately 3 tablespoons of butter per pastry. Then there are recipes that use a similar amount of butter, but prompt you to make smaller croissants for almost double the yield. Regardless of pastry size, this high volume of butter in a classic French croissant recipe may cause you to do a double-take.
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