These sourdough croissants are buttery and flaky, and leavened entirely with your sourdough starter, no commercial yeast. The process is spread over two days, but it isn’t actually difficult, and this step-by-step guide walks you through every stage!

I haven’t updated this post for a long time, but I took new photos recently so thought it was finally time! The recipe itself is the same one you know and love, I have just done a rewrite to make it much clearer and so you can see exactly what the dough and butter should look like as you go.

A flaky sourdough croissant cut in half, revealing its airy, layered interior, sits on a white plate with two whole croissants blurred in the background on a wooden surface.

About these sourdough croissants

These croissants are made entirely with sourdough starter, with no commercial yeast. The slower fermentation is what gives them their flavour, with just a gentle tang. The outside bakes up crisp and shattery and the inside is soft and layered.

It does take a bit of time, but the steps themselves are simple and once you get the rhythm it doesn’t feel like a big deal. The process is spread over two days, and you can choose whether to laminate the dough on day 1 or day 2. Either way, you’ll be mixing, fermenting, laminating, shaping, proofing and baking. None of the individual steps are particularly difficult but there are just a few of them!

The one thing that makes or breaks croissants is keeping the butter cool. The flaky layers come from thin sheets of solid butter trapped between layers of dough, and if that butter warms up and melts into the dough, those layers disappear and you get a bready texture instead. This is why croissants are easiest to make in a cool kitchen. If your room is above 25°C (77°F), you’ll struggle to keep the butter firm enough as you work, so aim for a cooler day or a cooler spot in the house.

The starter

These croissants rely only on your sourdough starter, so it needs to be active, bubbly, and low in acid. A weak or sleepy starter will give you slow, flat croissants that don’t rise properly, and an over-acidic starter will affect both the flavour and the dough strength.

You’ll need around 140g of fed, active starter at 100% hydration (equal weights of flour and water when feeding). A few tips for getting it right:

When you feed it depends on which schedule you’re following. For Schedule 1 I feed it in the morning of day 1 and let it peak before mixing.
For Schedule 2 I feed it the night before so it’s peaked and ready first thing, since day 1 is busier. More on this in the schedule below.
Refresh your starter regularly using a small amount of seed starter each time. This slows the acid build-up and keeps the flavour mild.
Ideally, use the starter when it’s at or close to its peak, before it has collapsed significantly. A starter that’s been left too long after peaking may be more acidic and less vigorous, which can affect the dough strength, flavour and proofing time.

At a room temperature of 21 to 23°C, a starter fed at a 1:2:2 ratio will double or even triple within around 6 hours. Good lamination starts with strong dough, and a well-fed, active starter builds the strength that lets the dough hold all those butter layers. You can read more about acid content in starters if you want to go deeper.

A golden, flaky sourdough croissant cut in half reveals its airy, layered interior, resting atop whole sourdough croissants on a cooling rack with a blurred background.

Baker’s schedule

Sourdough croissants are a two-day bake, and there are two ways to split the work. The difference is when you feed the starter, when you laminate, and which dough rests overnight. Both give great results, so pick whichever suits your day.

Schedule 1: laminate on day 2. Feed the starter in the morning of day 1 and let it reach its peak, which takes around 6 hours for mine. Mix and ferment the dough, then chill it overnight. The next day, make the butter packet and laminate with three folds (30-minute chills between each), chill for at least 2 hours, then shape, proof and bake. This is a good option if you’d rather spread the work out, though day 2 can run quite long.

Schedule 2: laminate on day 1 (my preferred way). Feed the starter the night before so it’s at its peak and ready first thing. You may need to use a higher feeding ratio or a cooler spot overnight so it doesn’t peak too early. Mix and ferment the dough, chill it for 2 to 3 hours, then laminate with all three folds that afternoon and rest the laminated dough overnight. Day 2 is then just shape, proof and bake, so you can have fresh croissants around lunchtime, depending on how quickly they proof. The overnight rest also relaxes the gluten and makes rolling much easier.

Watch the dough, not the clock. These timings are a guide and can be adjusted to suit your kitchen.

Method

The dough

Feed your starter so it’s bubbly and active.

A hand uses a whisk to mix a white liquid in a clear glass bowl on a marble countertop—a key step when preparing sourdough croissants. Another bowl with white powder, possibly flour, sits in the top left corner.

Whisk water and sourdough starter.

Hands kneading dough for sourdough croissants in a glass bowl on a white marble surface.

Add the flour, sugar, salt, sourdough starter, and butter to the bowl. Mix by hand into a sticky ball of dough, then work it further on the bench until smooth.

Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and leave to ferment for 3-4 hours at 24 to 25°C ( 75 to 77°F) until the dough has risen by around 20-40%. It doesn’t need to double.
Shape the dough into a flat rectangle, then wrap it tightly or place it in an airtight container. If following Schedule 1, refrigerate overnight. If following Schedule 2, refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours before laminating. Shaping the dough into a rectangle now means less rolling later, which helps keep the dough cold and relaxed.

The butter packet

The butter packet is the thin slab of butter you fold into the dough. There are two ways to make it, and which you choose comes down to your kitchen and your butter.

The flour method: Mix room-temperature butter with a little flour (around 1½ tablespoons for 250g butter) until smooth, then roll it between two sheets of baking paper into a rectangle of about 15 x 20cm (6 x 8 inch), then chill it. The flour stabilises the butter to make it a little bit easier to handle.

The just-butter (bashing) method: Slice cold butter and lay the pieces side by side on a sheet of baking paper. Fold the paper into a rectangle to give you clean edges and a size guide, cover with the top sheet, and pound with a rolling pin to soften, then press it out to fill the rectangle evenly. No flour. This gives cleaner layers and a better flaky texture, so it’s my preferred method when I can keep things cool.

A mound of yellow butter sits on a sheet of brown parchment paper next to a light-colored rolling pin—ready for baking fresh sourdough croissants—on a marble surface.

Two hands use a white rolling pin to flatten a square of yellow sourdough croissant dough on a light marble surface.

Whichever method you use, you then chill the packet until firm. Just before laminating, you bash it with the rolling pin, which breaks up and rearranges the firm fat crystals that set in the fridge and works them into a smooth, pliable mass without warming the butter. This is what gets the butter to that cold but bendy state, about the same firmness as the chilled dough. Matching those two consistencies is the single most important thing in lamination. Too cold and stiff, and the butter shatters inside the dough; too warm, and it smears in and you lose the layers. Gauging this gets better with practice.

Tip: The two methods want different starting butter. For bashing, keep the butter cold from the fridge. For the flour method, soften it to room temperature first so the flour mixes through easily, then chill it afterwards until firm.

Laminating

Encasing the butter

Take the butter packet from the fridge and give it a few bashes with the rolling pin to bring it back to a workable, bendy state. You’re aiming for the dough and butter to be a similar consistency, with the dough being cold and firm and the butter cold but bendy.

A rectangular sheet of butter is placed in the center of a large oval of rolled-out dough on a white marble surface, ready to be transformed into flaky sourdough croissants.

On a floured bench, roll the chilled dough into a 20 x 40cm (8 x 16 inch) rectangle. Place the cool butter packet in the middle of the dough.

A hand holding a knife is about to cut a folded sheet of dough for sourdough croissants on a white marble surface.

Bring the top of the dough down and the bottom up to meet in the middle, tucking the butter inside. Use a sharp knife to make a shallow slit along the long edges of the dough, to prevent excessive tension in the dough. Turn the dough a quarter turn.

Fold 1

Hands using a rolling pin to roll out folded sourdough croissant dough on a floured, light-colored surface.

Use the rolling pin to gently press along the length first to start dispersing the butter, then roll out into rectangle, around 8mm thick, focusing on lengthening rather than widening. Always roll in one direction, away from you, lifting the pin and starting again rather than rolling back and forth, which drags the layers against each other and smears the butter. Dust with flour if it sticks.

Hands folding a sheet of dough for sourdough croissants on a floured marble surface, with a rolling pin visible nearby.

Fold the dough like a pamphlet, bringing the top third down to the middle and the bottom third up over the top. Wrap tightly or place in an airtight container and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Fold 2 & 3

Hands rolling out a rectangular block of dough with a rolling pin on a floured, light-colored surface, preparing perfect sourdough croissants.

Turn the chilled dough 90 degrees and roll it out into another rectangle, around 8mm thick. Trim off any scraggly edges to help give you more even layers later. Repeat the pamphlet fold and chill for 20 to 30 minutes.

Two hands folding a sheet of pale dough on a lightly floured, white marble surface, preparing delicate sourdough croissants for baking.

Repeat the rolling and folding once more. After this third fold, chill the dough for at least 2 hours, tightly covered.

Cutting and shaping

A large rectangular sheet of rolled-out puff pastry dough, perfect for making sourdough croissants, rests on a white marble surface.

Roll the chilled dough into a 28 x 60cm (11 x 24 inch) rectangle, around 4mm thick.

A hand uses a pizza cutter to slice a sheet of dough for sourdough croissants into long, triangular strips on a marble surface.

Mark 5cm (2 inch) intervals along both long edges of the rectangle, with the marks directly opposite each other. Use a pizza cutter or large knife to cut diagonally between the marks, skipping every second mark along each edge to create alternating triangle.

Hands stretching a triangle of dough cut from a larger sheet, preparing sourdough croissants, with more dough triangles and a pastry wheel on a marble surface.

Stretch the cut at the base of each triangle out a little.

A person stretching and rolling a triangular piece of dough for sourdough croissants on a marble surface, with a pastry cutter and other dough triangles nearby.

Roll the triangle up tightly from the base to the tip.

A sheet of rolled-out dough cut into triangles for sourdough croissants, a single unbaked croissant, and a pizza cutter rest on a marble countertop.

Bend the ends in slightly to make a crescent, or leave them straight.

Unbaked sourdough croissants made from rolled dough are arranged on a baking sheet, ready to be baked.

Place the shaped croissants on parchment-lined trays and proof in a warm spot at around 24 to 25°C
until they are puffy, lighter, and jiggle when the tray is gently shaken.

Proofing: The layers in the proofed croissants should be visible. This can take anywhere from 4 to 7 hours depending on your room temperature, so go by the look and feel of them rather than the clock. To stop them drying out, spritz them gently with water, or create a warm, humid spot by placing them in a cold, turned-off oven next to (not above) a cup of hot water. Just make sure the spot doesn’t get too hot, or the butter will melt and ruin your layers.

A pastry brush applies an egg wash to unbaked sourdough croissants on a baking sheet, giving the pastries a shiny, golden coating.

Brush the proofed croissants with egg wash.

Golden, flaky sourdough croissants cooling on a metal wire rack, resting on a rustic wooden surface. The croissants have a shiny, crisp outer layer with visible, delicate layers.

Bake at 205°C / 400°F for around 20 minutes, until deeply browned. If they are browning too quickly, turn the oven down a little.

Tips for success

Keep everything cold. If the dough feels warm or sticky at any point during lamination, stop and refrigerate it for 20 to 30 minutes before continuing. If the butter becomes too warm and smears into the dough, you’ll lose some of the separation between the layers, which can lead to a denser, more bread-like texture.
Check the butter consistency each time. Before encasing, bash the butter with the rolling pin until it’s cold but pliable. It should bend without cracking, almost like cold clay. Too cold and it can shatter inside the dough; too warm and it smears into the layers.
Roll in one direction. I prefer to roll away from me, lifting the pin and starting again, rather than rolling back and forth. This gives me more control over the dough and butter layers.
Brush off excess flour before folding. Any loose flour trapped between the layers can create dry patches, so brush it away before each fold.
Don’t rush the final proof. Underproofed croissants can leak butter during baking and have a dense, gummy centre. However, butter leakage can also happen if the layers have been damaged during lamination or the butter has become too warm. Make sure the croissants are properly puffy and jiggly before baking.

A close-up of a flaky, golden sourdough croissant with a bite taken out, showing its airy layers. The croissant sits on a white plate, with more pastries blurred in the background.

Other ways to use this dough

This same laminated dough is endlessly useful. You can turn it into:

Sourdough pain au chocolat, with batons of dark chocolate rolled inside
Sourdough cruffins, twisted into a muffin tin and rolled in sugar
Sourdough Danish pastries, shaped and filled with custard, fruit, or jam
Sourdough kouign-amann, caramelised in muffin tins with sugar

Storage and freezing

Croissants are best served fresh on the day they’re baked, and the layers will be most prominent once the croissant has cooled to room temperature before slicing.

Leftover croissants can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days, or frozen for up to 3 months.

Freezing unbaked croissants: I’m currently retesting the best ways to freeze sourdough croissants, including different freezing durations, thawing methods and proofing temperatures.

While you can freeze shaped, unproofed sourdough croissants, the results can be a little unpredictable. Freezing can affect the activity of the wild yeast, which means the croissants may take considerably longer to rise or may not rise as well as freshly made ones.

For now, I’ve removed my original freezing instructions while I do some more testing. I’ll be updating this section with clearer instructions, photos and results from my experiments so you can see exactly what works best. In the meantime, my recommendation is to bake the croissants first and freeze them once completely cooled. They can then be thawed and refreshed in the oven when you’re ready to eat them.

Watch this space!

FAQs about sourdough croissants

This is almost always underproofing rather than underbaking. If the layers haven’t proofed enough, the inside stays dense and gummy even when the outside looks perfectly baked. Let them proof until they’re genuinely puffy, light, and jiggly when you move the tray, which can take longer than you expect. If you’re confident they’re well proofed and the centre is still doughy, try lowering the oven temperature slightly and baking a few minutes longer, so the heat has time to reach the middle before the outside over-browns.

A few things help. Use your starter at its peak, freshly fed and low in acid, rather than one that’s been sitting and building acidity. Keeping the bulk ferment to a 30 to 40% rise rather than letting it go longer also keeps the tang gentle, since most of the sour flavour develops during a warm, extended bulk rather than in the cold fridge.

Either the butter melted into the dough during lamination (keep everything cold), or the croissants were underproofed (let them get genuinely puffy and jiggly before baking). These are the two most common causes.

Yes. Mix and knead the dough in a stand mixer with a dough hook until smooth. The rest of the process (lamination, shaping) is done by hand.

Some butter leakage is normal, but a lot usually means the croissants were underproofed. When the layers haven’t relaxed and expanded enough, the butter has nowhere to go but out. Make sure they’re properly puffy and jiggly before baking, and bake on a tray lined with parchment to catch any run-off.

Usually the butter is too cold and brittle. When it’s stiffer than the dough, it cracks and tears through instead of stretching with it. Bash the packet with the rolling pin to bring it back to a cold but bendy state before you laminate, and aim to match it to the firmness of the dough.

A close-up of a sourdough croissant cut in half, revealing its airy, flaky, and golden layers, resting on a cooling rack with more sourdough croissants blurred in the background.

Related recipes

Try these other sourdough recipes:

Love lamination? Try this inverse puff pastry, or if you’re short on time, here’s a rough puff pastry.

Step by Step Sourdough Croissants

Elien Lewis

These sourdough croissants are buttery, shatteringly flaky, and leavened with sourdough starter. A labour of love, but worth it.

4.78 from 258 votes

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Prep Time 1 12

Cook Time 20

Total Time 1 12 20

Course Breakfast

Cuisine French

Servings

Calories 352 kcal

Ingredients

Levain

30 g starter
60 g all-purpose flour
60 g water

Dough Ingredients:

450 g all-purpose flour
8 g salt
40 g sugar
230 g water
All the levain or around 140g active sourdough starter, 100% hydration
50 g unsalted butter room temperature

Butter packet:

250 g unsalted butter room temperature or cold depending on method used, see notes
1 1/2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour (only for the flour method, see notes)

Egg Wash

1 egg + 1 tbsp water