Pain au Chocolat (Laminated Pastry with Two Chocolate Batons)

Variations

• How it differs from a croissant: the dough is the same as a croissant. What changes is the cutting and shaping — a croissant is cut in triangles and rolled from the wide end into a crescent, while a pain au chocolat is cut in rectangles and rolled around chocolate batons into a cylinder. That is why its layered cross-section shows on both ends.
• The chocolatine argument: in south-west France (Bordeaux, Toulouse) it is a chocolatine; Paris and most of the country say pain au chocolat. It is serious enough that an amendment making chocolatine the official name was actually tabled in the Assemblée nationale in 2018, and voted down. In Belgium it is also called a couque au chocolat.
• Pain viennois dough: a softer version with more milk and butter worked in. This recipe is the traditional laminated one. Brioche is a different family altogether — butter mixed into the dough rather than folded in sheets.
• Overnight cold prove: swap the two-hour room-temperature prove for 12-15 hours in the fridge. The flavour is far deeper and you only have to bake in the morning. Let them come up to room temperature for an hour before baking (fermentation basics).
• Freeze them shaped: frozen before proving they keep a month. Thaw overnight in the fridge, then prove as usual (freezing and thawing).
• Aux amandes: split a leftover one, fill it with almond cream and bake it again for a pain au chocolat aux amandes. This is the standard French bakery move for rescuing day-two pastries (reviving leftovers).
• Related breads here: baguette is a lean unlaminated dough, bagels and pretzels are boiled before baking, and babka twists its chocolate through the dough instead. For a chocolate dessert, there is chocolate mousse.

Tips

• Butter temperature is the entire dish. Dough and butter only stretch together when they are the same firmness. Too cold and the slab cracks into pieces, breaking the layers; too soft and it is absorbed into the dough and you have made brioche. 13-16°C — a finger leaves a dent but the butter does not crack — is the target.
• A warm worktop and warm hands lose. In summer, back into the fridge after every roll, plus an extra twenty minutes whenever you need it. "It took longer" is not a failure in this recipe.
• Use butter at 82% fat or above. Wetter butter cracks as you roll and steams too hard in the oven, tearing the layers instead of lifting them. Sheet butter (beurre de tourage) makes it easiest (dairy and heat).
• Do not use bread flour alone. You need gluten to hold the layers, but all-strong flour turns chewy. Roughly five parts bread flour to one of plain is right (choosing flour, dough and gluten).
• Three letter folds, and no more. Twenty-seven layers is right for a dough this size. Five folds gives 243, at which point each layer is thin enough to fuse with its neighbours and the result has no layers at all.
• Do not press when cutting. A crushed edge is a sealed edge and will not rise. One stroke with a sharp knife, or roll a pizza wheel (knife skills).
• Two batons, not one. With one, the middle of the roll is hollow and sinks in the oven. Two brace each other and the pastry climbs instead.
• Seam down. Seam up, it unrolls during proving and baking and the chocolate escapes (wrapping and sealing).
• Egg wash the top only. On the cut layers at the sides it glues them shut and they never open. Lay the brush on lightly rather than painting (cooking eggs).
• Do not rush the final prove. Under-proved, they bake through on the outside but stay tight and heavy inside. The wobble when you shake the tray is the only signal you can actually see.
• Do not trust the dial; read the colour. A domestic oven runs 20°C or more off its setting. Brown right into the layered sides is the test (what your oven is doing, browning).
• Reheat them the next day. After a night the butter has set firm. Five minutes in a 180°C oven brings the layers back; a microwave kills them (serving temperature, reviving leftovers).
• Chocolate at 55-70%. Milk chocolate melts out completely in the oven, and above 85% it fights the sweetness of a buttery pastry (what sugar does).