Menu
Author:
Franco Salzillo
The ultimate breakfast pastry, pain au chocolat, literally meaning bread with chocolate, is much more than that. The bread is flaky and filled with air pockets, and the chocolaty core is real melted chocolate. Eat one of these straight out of the oven and experience what real bread tastes like.
Let’s make a fresh batch of the famous pain au chocolate. That’s French for chocolate bread.
These golden packets of flaky dough are one of those things no one can say no to, and it’s because they’re not overly packed with chocolate; they have the right amount of chocolate to make you smile, and that’s the cool thing about these pastries.
Make a few of these and serve them for breakfast with a warm cup of coffee or hot chocolate. No one can eat only one, though, so make sure there’s plenty to go around!
The pain au chocolate is also a great grab-and-go snack to take to school or work, as it stays fluffy for quite a while! Here’s how you make pain au chocolate at home.
To make these golden chocolate pockets, you need to make a dough, and although you need pretty straightforward ingredients, this one’s kind of tricky. You must let the dough rise quite a bit. To make the dough, have in hand flour, yeast, milk, sugar and salt.
The secret behind pain au chocolate is adding a thin layer of butter inside the dough, so it becomes flaky in the oven. The filling is just chocolate, so make sure you get high-quality bakers’ chocolate for your bread.
Let’s check out the recipe for pain au chocolate. Be patient with this one. It might take some time, but it’s actually pretty simple. You’ll love the results, though!
For pain au chocolat, get the dough right, and the rest is easy. Yeast, egg yolks, sugar and flour, come together nicely for a thick dough that rises nicely. Once you add the butter, it’s game time, so shape your pain au chocolate and sprinkle some shaved chocolate over it. Roll the dough, cut it into individual pieces, and you’re done!
The hardest part here is making sure the chocolate is evenly spread over the dough, especially as you roll it, but you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly! Be careful with these when straight out of the oven, as the chocolate is insanely hot!
Hydrate the instant yeast in a few tablespoons of warm water. Place three tablespoons into a small bowl, melt with a few seconds in the microwave and allow it to cool down.
In a mixing bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, milk, sugar, salt and melted butter and mix to form a dough. If too dry, add a splash of milk; add a few tablespoons of flour if too sticky.
Once firm, shape the dough into a ball and cover the mixing bowl with a kitchen towel. Allow it to rise for 25-30 minutes.
Dust a clean surface with flour and roll the dough to form a rectangle of around 1/3-inch thick and roughly 10×15 inches in size.
Cover the rolled dough with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 30 minutes; it will rise a bit more.
Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Brush the dough with softened butter and fold it in half. Roll the dough again to its original size. Cut the dough lengthwise to get two rectangles.
Chop the chocolate and place one or two lines of chocolate across each of the dough rectangles. Roll the dough to form two tubes. Cut the tubes into ten pieces, put them on the baking tray and flatten slightly.
Combine the egg and the milk in a small bowl and brush the pastries.
Bake for 25-20 minutes or until flaky and golden.
Allow to cool down before serving and enjoy!
