Lune Croissants all day, all night

Reid debuts with a gorgeous homage to her Australian bakery Lune Croissanterie, offering home chefs expert tutelage in how to reproduce her creations. Reid, a former aerospace engineer, meticulously details the painstaking process of creating croissants--an undertaking not for the faint of heart--and describes the multiday method she has perfected, which involves preparing poolish (a step to increase the dough's flexibility), making the croissant dough, laminating, and cutting the pastry to form shapes before baking. Reid is an excellent instructor, with an eye for the details that can make or break the process: she deconstructs the prickly challenge of creating a croissant's delicate layers in a home kitchen, shares tips on sourcing quality ingredients and their substitutes, and outlines the intricacies of dough shaping. The result is a feast for the eyes and the palate, with offerings including pain au chocolat, savory ham and gruyère croissants, and kouign-amann. Reid offers indulgences for every occasion and in a nice turn dedicates a chapter to transforming leftover croissants into delicacies including bread pudding or chocolate-dipped croissant biscotti. Home cooks who've tried and failed at the challenge of making croissants will want to pick this up. (Feb.)