Made from puff pastry in a crescent shape. It is a buttery, flaky,
viennoiserie pastry inspired by the shape of the Austrian kipferl but
using the French yeast-leavened laminated dough. Croissants are named
for their historical crescent shape. The dough is layered with butter,
rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a thin
sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a
layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry. Crescent-shaped breads
have been made since the Renaissance, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly
since antiquity.
The modern croissant was developed in the early
20th century when French bakers replaced the brioche dough of the
kipferl with a yeast-leavened laminated dough. In the late 1970s, the
development of factory-made, frozen, preformed but unbaked dough made
them into a fast food that could be freshly baked by unskilled labor.
The croissant bakery, notably the La Croissanterie chain, was a French
response to American-style fast food, and as of 2008, 30–40% of the
croissants sold in French bakeries and patisseries were baked from
frozen dough. Croissants are a common part of a continental breakfast in
many European countries and served as dessert all around the world.