Which 17th-century cookbook is linked to the technique that now characterizes croissants?

The 17th-century cookbook linked to the technique that now characterizes croissants is Le Cuisinier françois. Written by François Pierre de La Varenne, the influential French cookbook described a form of layered pastry technique in an edition dated to 1680, and possibly earlier.

This was not a modern croissant recipe. The technique was generally used to make pastry shells or other preparations that held fillings, rather than the yeast-leavened crescent sold by modern bakeries. Its importance is that it shows the underlying idea of layering dough and fat long before the modern croissant took shape.

Le Cuisinier françois was first published in 1651 and helped define the transition from medieval and Renaissance cooking toward early modern French cuisine. La Varenne emphasized clearer methods, natural flavors, sauces, stocks, and professional culinary terminology.

A common mix-up is to treat the book as the invention of the croissant itself. The modern pastry emerged much later, after Austrian crescent pastries and Parisian baking traditions converged. The cookbook is best understood as an early record of a technique, not proof that 17th-century France produced today’s croissant.