I used Paul Hollywood's recipe for croissants from his book '100 Great Breads' since I knew it would be a recipe that I could trust not to lead me too far astray and in honour of the GBBO since it is what inspired me into making them in the first place.
It took me about 5 hours on the first day of making them just to get the dough ready since, after it had been mixed it had to be left in the fridge for an hour, then be rolled out, have the butter folded into it, then be left in the fridge for an hour again, then rolled and folded again, and the same again several times. I had to keep getting up every hour to roll it out which made my evening rather less than restful. Anyway, when it was ready and had been left in the fridge overnight I rolled it out into a very thin dough, a process which I can understand why they get machines to do these days, then I cut it into squares, cut the squares in half diagonally into triangles, then rolled them into croissant shapes. This is what my uncooked croissants looked like - not too awful.
I then glazed them with egg and cooked them in the oven and this is what they looked like when I took them out.
So they may not be the most uniform and beautiful croissants you have ever seen but I was very pleased with them since they were my first ever attempt and they were not heavy and stodgy like I thought they would be but were crispy and buttery with a soft middle.
I got the recipe for these from Paul Hollywood's book but if you want to make these yourself then here is a link for the same recipe http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/514811
