Hi everyone! In the last few days the weather has gotten considerably cooler and rainy. So after I watched my favorite football team play yesterday (Go Steelers!), I decided that I would bake something. I always have a long list in my mind of things that I would like to try. However, I decided on a tried and true favorite... Chocolate croissants!!
My love for them started in Culinary school. The first class that I took was a bread class. I thought chocolate croissants would come later in my breakfast and pastries class. Nope! Much to my surprise, I was making these delicious little treats only a few weeks into school. Every 2 month cycle (that is how long each class would last), I would go back to the breads instructor and he would give me a chocolate croissant from his demo batch. Yum! I was hooked!
So when my sister gave me this book...
and I found that there was a recipe for them, I had to try it! Now this book has tons of good recipes for all things with pastry. Pies, savory tarts, puff pastry, brioche, croissants, pate a choux (cream puffs), pizza dough and more! If you like all those things, you would really like this
book!
Anyways... back to the croissants!
Chocolate Croissants
1 oz fresh yeast (this really is better than the instant yeast and you can find it in most grocery stores these days by the butter)
generous 1 cup whole milk
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. fine salt
1/4 sugar
1 1/4 cup butter, cold but not too hard
eggwash (beat 1 egg yolk with 1 tbsp milk)
Chocolate chips
- Break the yeast up so it crumbles into a bowl. Add the milk. Let it sit for a minute or so and then mix with your fingers so the yeast dissolves.
- Put the flour, salt and sugar into a mixer bowl. Use a stand mixer with a dough hook.
- Turn the mixer on low, gradually adding the yeast mixture.
- Stop working the dough as soon as a nice ball forms and it does not stick to the sides of the bowl. (If it is dry, slowly add a little bit of milk until it comes together. If it is too wet, slowly add a little bit of flour. You want it to form a ball, but not be too sticky to the touch.)
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place (about 75 degrees) for about 45 minutes to an hour. It should double in size.
- Knock back the dough by flipping it over and letting the gases out, but do not over work the dough. Do this gently.
- Cover the bowl and chill for 4 hours in the fridge. Do not chill for more than 8 hours.
- Roll the dough out so it forms a long rectangle.
- Cut the butter in thin strips and place it in the center 1/3 of the dough.
- Fold one side over the butter.
- Then fold the other 1/3 of dough on top of that.
- First turn- turn the dough 90 degrees so that the next time you roll, you roll it in the opposite direction.
- Lightly flour the surface and roll out the dough just like you did the first time in a long rectangle.
- Fold in three.
- Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
- Second turn- give the dough a quarter turn, roll out to a rectangle, fold again, wrap and chill as you did for the first turn.
- Third and final turn- roll the dough out in the opposite direction from the 2nd turn to a rectangle and fold as before. Wrap in plastic and chill 30 minutes. No more than 1 hour.
- At this time, I cut the dough in half to make it easier to roll out.
- Roll the dough out so that it is about 1/4 inch thick.
- I cut mine into 10 even rectangles.
I usually like to use pain
au chocolat sticks from King Arthur Flour, but I was out. So I used whatever chocolate I had. It happened to be these. Love them!
- I placed chocolate chips in the middle 1/3 of the dough.
- Eggwash the bottom third of the dough.
- Fold the top part over the chocolate, and then the bottom part with the eggwash. This will help everything to stick together.
- Flip them over so the seam side in down.
- Press the edges together so no chocolate escapes during the baking process.
- Using a sharp knife, cut a couple slits in the top so that steam can escape and they do not explode open in the oven.
- Eggwash and proof in a warm place for 1-2 hours, so they can rise and double in size.
- At this time, I turn the oven on to 350 degrees.
- Eggwash one last time before you put them in the oven for about 12-15 minutes. You want to make sure they are a very golden brown! There are many layers of flaky goodness in there and you want to make sure that all the layers have baked! No one wants to eat a raw croissant!
- Cool slightly and enjoy warm!
Look at all the flakiness! So yummy!
Now, I know this recipes takes time. It can be intimidating the first time you try this. But I promise, it is worth the wait and patience! Store bought chocolate croissants do not even compare to these! Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
Happy baking! :-)
