no yeast croissants, troubleshooting - please help!

I have made a beautiful puff pastry that I wanted to turn into some rustic, crunchy croissants, some people have said I need to use a yeast dough for croissants but I don't see why I can't use a regular puff pastry dough. Anyway I have a couple questions -
1. How exactly should they be baked? I did them at 400 and my parchment paper started to turn a light brown, I was afraid it would burn...should I bake them straight on the pan? Or maybe my temp. is wrong, how hot should they baked and for how long?
2. I also ended up with some butter pooling when I baked, I had rested the shaped croissants for about half an hour before I baked, should I bake them straight out of the fridge? (again keeping in mind that there is no yeast in the dough)
3. I am making these for a morning event and they will be done on a regular basis, I would prefer to have them shaped the night before and just bake them the morning of, will they dry out too much in the fridge if I put a bag around them in the pan?

nanners317
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Reiney July 19, 2012
Basically what you'll end up with is a pithhivier or vol-au-vent instead of a croissant/danish. The yeast dough develops just enough gluten to develop structure - and importantly the yeast imparts flavour as well.

That said, no reason you can't experiment a bit. With a puff pastry dough you want to go cold-hot as quickly as possible, so get the dough nice and cold. (this is why your butter was pooling)

375 is probably about right, since they'll be thick. You can bake on a pan, a silpat or parchment it doesn't much matter. The parchment browning isn't a problem, is the product you don't want to burn on the outside. In fact, most laminated doughs (croissants, puff, danish) are underbaked in the US.

You can shape and rest overnight, covered with cling film, or you can even freeze and bake later.
 
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