Making croissants with Chef Esther McManus

Croissants are the perfect accompaniment to your morning coffee — light and buttery without sending you into a sugar coma. While most of us depend on local cafes to supply us with our daily croissant fix, wouldn’t it be great to bake some at home? And wouldn’t it be even better if you learned how to make croissants from a croissant connoisseur?

Tonight, you’re in luck. Les Dames d’Escoffier is hosting a croissant-making workshop with Chef Esther McManus, the woman who showed Julia Child how to make croissants on her TV show, “Baking with Julia.”

“The key to a perfect croissant is patience,” says McManus. “A croissant should have lightness, a slight amount of chewiness, a million layers all separated from one another — in other words, an impossible task,” she adds.

McManus started learning how to make croissants in Paris at the Dodin Bouffant restaurant in 1974 under pastry chef Pierre Menier.

“I kept going back to him to learn. From the moment I started to learn to make it, it became an obsession that refuses to leave me. I never think my croissant is perfect, because in my eyes, it never is,” McManus reveals.

All proceeds from the event will benefit the Les Dames d’Escoffier Scholarship fund, which supports women pursuing careers in the culinary arts, hospitality, fine beverage and agriculture.

If you go:
How to Make Croissants
Tuesday, Jan. 10
7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College
4207 Walnut Street
$35 to $45
lesdamesphilly.com