Pain au Chocolat

With the promise of a long, lazy Sunday afternoon ahead of me, I decided that today would be the day. Today, I would make my own croissant dough. Today I would make Pain au Chocolat. I pulled out Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible that Dan had given me for Christmas last year and found not only her recipe for croissant dough but a beautiful photograph of her Pains au Chocolat--deep golden brown and flaky, you could see all of the layers of pastry and the chocolate peeking out from the ends. If I could even get close to that, I thought, I would count the day a success.

As we often must do with an undertaking such as this, I told a friend what I was planning to do and offered her some if the pastry turned out well--this committed me to actually going through with it. I learned very quickly that this dough is not at all difficult; it gets its reputation, as so many baked goods do, from the amount of time and patience required, not from any needed degree of skill. It saddens me that as a society we've chosen the phrase "it's too hard" to denote anything time-consuming, anything from which we cannot obtain instant gratification but must instead take pleasure in the process. I'm not saying that I will make my own croissants every weekend--it did take about 10-12 hours, start to finish, but that first bite was heaven. Crusty, flaky, tender, warm, sweet and salty--imagine a French bakery and a crowd of tourists smiling to the strains of Edith Piaf's sultry "La Vie en Rose" and you've got the feeling just about right. Comforting and familiar, if not entirely authentic.

I'm not going to type out the recipe, as I did not use only one and I think talking through the process, as Beranbaum does in her books, is the most approachable way to begin. In case you're wondering, I also used The King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book, as it contained diagrams of the rolling and folding process and I am somewhat spacially deficient.

So first you make a dough using about 10 ounces of flour--you can use entirely all-purpose flour, a mix of all-purpose and bread flour, all-purpose and whole wheat flour, or all-purpose and whole-wheat pastry flour. Warm up 3/4 cup of milk, place a couple tablespoons with a packet of active dry yeast and a 1/2 tsp. of sugar in a small bowl and allow it to sit for 20 minutes to get bubbly and foamy. Meanwhile, in a standing mixer with the whisk attachment, fluff up the flour, 1 tsp. salt, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar. Switch to the dough hook and add the yeast mixture and slowly pour in the rest of the milk. Let them mix for about 4-5 minutes--the dough should be smooth and silky and should not stick to the bowl. It may look like there won't be enough liquid to soak up all the flour--there will be. Resist the urge to add more milk. In the time it took me to go the fridge and pour more milk in my measuring cup, the dough hook had worked all of the flour into the mixture and I ended up pouring the milk right back into the carton. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turn it to coat, and let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Using a spatula, fold it over on itself, recover, and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours and at most overnight.

Meanwhile, knead 2 sticks of butter--cold but softened--with 1 tablespoon of flour (it's easiest to do this with the butter and flour in a ziplock bag) and form it into a 5-inch square. Chill for 30 minutes. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into an 8 or 9-inch square and place the butter square diagonally in the center. Fold the flaps of dough to cover and moisten the edges with water if they need help sticking. Chill for 30 minutes.
Next, roll the dough into a long rectangle, three times as long as wide (20 x 7, 18 x 6), the shortest part facing you. Fold it like a business letter--bottom third up, top third down. Make sure the edges are even--moisten to seal if necessary. This is one turn. Cover in plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes. 
Complete three more turns, rolling, folding, and chilling. After the last turn, chill the dough for a couple of hours. After letting it rest at room temperature for a few minutes, roll it into a long rectangle as before, but a little longer and wider. Cut it in half lengthwise so you have two very long strips. Cut each of those in half, and then each of those halves into thirds. You should have 12 rectangles. Place 1/2 ounce of good chocolate at the end of each rectangle and roll it so the chocolate is covered and the edges of dough overlap--moisten to seal. Place the roll seam-side down on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving a few inches between each. Cover in plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray and let rise for 2 hours. Before baking, brush the tops with an egg wash. You can refrigerate the rolls at this point and bake in the morning, or for up to two days. You can also freeze them, unbaked, for a few months, but be sure to use more yeast in the beginning as freezing tends to kill some of the yeast.

To bake, preheat the oven to 400 F. Five minutes before baking, place a glass dish filled with an inch of hot water in the oven. Bake the pains for 20-22 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove and allow to cool for at least ten minutes before eating. You can reheat them later for 5 minutes in a 300 F oven, or you can freeze them and reheat for 8 minutes.

I find they fit best if you place them diagonally on the baking sheets.

How pretty is that?
I baked one batch immediately and refrigerated one to bake in the morning. I think the batch that got a night's rest in the fridge actually tasted better. While they did not rise as much, the layers separated better and they were more tender. This may have been my imagination, as a cup of coffee and a lazy morning make everything better, but don't be afraid to put off baking these. They work anytime. And as I said, they're not hard--lots of repetition and my palms are a but sore from rolling the dough, but it's an accomplished sort of pain. The kind that builds callouses and character.
Enjoy!