Chocolate Croissants (Pains au Chocolat)

The only thing better than having a chocolate croissant at brunch is being handed one crisp and warm from the oven. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend years working the Parisian patisserie circuit to make this dream a reality. Anyone with a rolling pin and a cache of butter (and yes, a fair amount of time on their hands), can perfect pain au chocolat at home. If this is your first time making this style of pastry, there are a few essential tools that may seem out of place: a spray bottle and a garbage bag. As the shaped croissants rise, you’ll tuck them into an (unscented!) large plastic bag (a garbage bag is the usual go-to and much easier to manage than a bunch of fiddly sheets of plastic wrap) to generate a moist environment that prevents the pastries’ surfaces from drying out. The spray bottle is used to spritz the walls of your oven with water, creating steam that renders the tops a shiny golden brown and enhances the airy, flaky layers.

Croissant dough isn’t dissimilar from puff pastry, but for one key ingredient: yeast. The process of making it requires a technique called folding. First you wrap the dough around a block of butter, then roll it, fold it into thirds, and chill it before repeating the process an hour or two later. It takes some time, but it’s incredibly worth it. This recipe makes enough dough for two batches of croissants. You can freeze half for another batch down the road or use it to make a round of almond croissants simply by swapping out the chocolate batons for a pat of almond paste. (For a savory take, fill with a dollop of cream cheese and dust the tops with everything bagel seasoning).

About those batons: Using quality dark chocolate distinguishes an ordinary pain au chocolat from an excellent one. It’s worth the effort to order high-quality dark chocolate batons rather than use chocolate chips, which may create pools of saccharine, unevenly melted chocolate in your otherwise perfect dough. You may see percentages as low as 40% rather than the usual 60%–70% seen on most bitter- and semisweet chocolate packaging. According to our resident baking expert, Shilpa Uskokovic, as long as the batons have a minimum of 35% cocoa solids and no dairy, it qualifies as “dark” and will work wonderfully in this chocolate croissant recipe.