Pendant la cuisson, la croûte commence déjà à dorer.

Pendant means during, and la cuisson is the cooking or the baking process. Together, Pendant la cuisson sets the time frame: it tells you when the rest happens.

It works like an English time expression such as:

• During cooking
• While it is baking

French often places this kind of time phrase at the beginning of the sentence, followed by a comma, to give context first.

French often uses a noun where English might prefer a clause.

• la cuisson = the cooking / the baking process
• quand ça cuit = when it cooks / while it is cooking

Both are possible in French, but pendant la cuisson sounds compact, natural, and slightly more recipe-like or instructional. It is very common in cooking contexts.

In French, definite articles like le, la, les are used much more often than the in English.

Here, la croûte refers to the crust as the crust of the item being cooked. French treats it as a specific, understood part of the food, so la sounds natural.

English might sometimes say the crust, but in recipe-style language English can also drop articles more easily than French.

After commencer, French usually uses à before another verb in the infinitive.

So:

• commencer à + infinitive
• commence à dorer = begins to brown

This is just the normal pattern of the verb:

• Je commence à comprendre.
• Il commence à pleuvoir.
• La croûte commence à dorer.

So the à is required here.

Yes, at its core dorer is related to gold and can mean to gild. But in cooking, it commonly means:

• to turn golden
• to brown
• to become golden on the surface

So in this sentence, dorer describes the crust taking on a golden-brown color during cooking.

All of these forms are possible, but they are not identical in feel.

• commence à dorer = starts browning / starts turning golden
• commence à être dorée = starts to be golden
  This sounds less natural here.
• commence à devenir dorée = starts to become golden
  Grammatically fine, but heavier and less idiomatic in a cooking instruction.

In recipe language, dorer is short, natural, and very common.

Déjà means already. It suggests that the browning starts sooner than expected or is noticeable at this stage.

So the sentence is not just saying that the crust begins to brown, but that it is already beginning to brown during cooking.

It adds a nuance of progression:

• commence à dorer = starts to brown
• commence déjà à dorer = is already starting to brown

In French, short adverbs like déjà, bien, encore, souvent are often placed near the conjugated verb.

So:

• la croûte commence déjà à dorer

This is the most natural placement.

You may also see adverbs in other positions in French depending on emphasis, but here this placement is standard and idiomatic.

French recipes and instructions often use the present tense to describe what happens generally or normally during a process.

So la croûte commence déjà à dorer means something like:

• the crust is already beginning to brown
• the crust begins to brown

It is not necessarily about something happening right this second in conversation; it can describe a typical stage in the cooking process.

It is pronounced as one syllable: roughly kroot.

A few notes:

• cr is pronounced together, as in English cr-
• ou sounds like oo in food
• û does not change pronunciation much in modern French here; the circumflex is mainly a spelling feature
• the final -te is not pronounced as a full extra syllable

So croûte is essentially kroot.

Yes. You could also say:

• La croûte commence déjà à dorer pendant la cuisson.

That is grammatically correct. But putting Pendant la cuisson first helps frame the situation immediately and sounds very natural in explanations or recipe instructions.

Beginning with the time phrase can make the sentence feel a little smoother and more organized.

Yes, durant la cuisson is possible and means almost the same thing.

However:

• pendant is very common and neutral
• durant can sound slightly more formal or written

In everyday cooking instructions, pendant la cuisson is often the more natural choice.