Argentine medialunas – sweet butter crescents

1. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk with a spoonful of sugar; in a bowl combine the flour, remaining sugar, salt, eggs, scraped vanilla seeds, yeasty milk and the 50 g of soft butter and knead for 8-10 minutes into a smooth, elastic dough; refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Flatten the 200 g of cold butter between two sheets of baking paper with a rolling pin into a 15×15 cm square.

3. Roll the dough into a 30×30 cm square, lay the butter square diagonally in the centre and fold the corners over it like an envelope to seal; roll into a long rectangle, fold in thirds and refrigerate for 30 minutes – repeat this rolling and folding twice more.

4. Roll the dough out 4 mm thick, cut into long, narrow triangles and roll up from the wide end towards the tip, curving the ends slightly into a crescent; place on a lined baking tray and prove for 1-1½ hours until doubled.

5. Preheat the oven to 200 °C; brush the crescents with beaten egg and bake for 15-18 minutes until golden.

6. Meanwhile boil the sugar and water for 3 minutes into a syrup and brush the baked, still-hot medialunas with it straight away – this makes them glossy and stickily sweet.

Tip: Argentine medialunas are smaller, sweeter and denser than French croissants – in Buenos Aires cafés they're eaten for breakfast with café con leche ("café con leche con medialunas").