Pain au Chocolat
Laminated dough rolled around two batons of chocolate. The same dough as a croissant, and the same single problem: keeping the butter cold.
Photograph credit: Pain au chocolat Luc Viatour (image of pain au chocolat on Wikidata Q1190838) by Luc Viatour · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Build the Meal Around Pain au Chocolat
- Coffee
- More coffee
- A newspaper
Photograph credit: Boulangerie Bardoulet (Contrevoz) - croissants et pains au chocolat by Benoît Prieur · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Making Pain au Chocolat, Step by Step
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Mix the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, milk and 50 g softened butter into a dough. Knead 6 minutes, then wrap and refrigerate 60 minutes.
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Beat the cold butter block between two sheets of paper into a 20 cm square, keeping it cold and pliable. Chill.
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Roll the dough to a 40 x 20 cm rectangle, lay the butter on one half, fold the other over and seal the edges.
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Roll out to 60 x 20 cm and fold in three like a letter. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Repeat this twice more — three turns in total, chilling 30 minutes between each.
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Roll the finished dough to 3 mm thick and cut into 8 x 16 cm rectangles.
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Lay a chocolate baton near one short edge, roll once, add a second baton, and roll up. Set seam-side down on lined trays.
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Prove at cool room temperature 120 minutes, until visibly puffy and wobbling. Brush with egg and bake at 200°C / 400°F for 18 to 20 minutes until deep brown.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Worth Knowing Before You Cook
Thirty minutes in the fridge between every turn. No exceptions.
Butter at 15°C / 59°F — pliable but cold.
Prove until they wobble. Under-proved pastries leak butter.
Leftovers
Best within hours. A day in a paper bag; refresh at 180°C / 356°F for 5 minutes. They freeze proved and unbaked for a month.
Questions and Answers
How long does Pain au Chocolat take to make?
1 hour of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking, plus 4 hours of chilling between turns and the final prove, so allow 5 hours 20 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 8.
Nutrition per Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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