croissants & pain au chocolat

method

making the dough (evening before bake)

1. Incorporate all of the ingredients, except for the butter, until they come together into a rough dough.

2. Wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge overnight, or 10 hours at least.

laminating (morning of bake)

1. Take your dough out of the fridge and unwrap it onto a lightly floured surface.

2. Flatten it to about 3/4 inch thick, then wrap and freeze for 15 minutes.

3. Take your butter out of the fridge and place it between two sheets of greaseproof paper.

4. Use a rolling pin to flatten it to 3/4 inch thick.

5. Cut it into a square and place the offcuts on top. Flatten it again until it is even.

6. Use a dough scraper, or something flat, to shape the flattened butter into as much of a square shape as possible.

7. Place this in the fridge for around 15 minutes.

8. Remove the dough from the freezer and roll it into a rectangle that is as wide as your butter, but double as long.

9. Remove the butter from the paper, and place it into the middle of your dough.

10. Fold the two edge pieces of dough on top, so that they join in the middle.

11. Flip the whole thing onto a lightly floured surface, so that the seam is on the bottom, and roll out to around 1cm thick. One thing to note is that you want to roll this widthways. If you imagine that your dough has two sides that are sealed and two sides that are open, you want to roll from one open side to the other. This will mean that the long edges of your rolled out dough are the ones that are sealed.

12. Flip the rolled out dough over, and perform a letter fold. This is where you fold one side up about 2/3rds of the way, then fold the other edge on top. Similar to how you fold a letter in 3 before putting it in an envelope.

13. Wrap up the folded dough and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

14. Now, you want to take the dough out and do this process again. Place it on a lightly floured surface with the seam on the lowest side, and roll from one open edge to the other (this will be the opposite way to before) until it is around 1cm thick. Flip it over, do another letter fold, wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

15. Do this process one more time, a grand total of 3 times, to get the optimum amount of layers. The first set of folds would have created 3 layers, the second would have tripled that to 9 layers, and the third will leave you with 27 layers of dough and butter.

shaping & proving (afternoon of bake)

1. After the final fold, wrap and chill, take the dough out of the fridge and roll back out to 1cm thick.

2. Trim the edges, then slice into triangles for croissants, or rectangles for pain au chocolat. The photos below should help with this.

3. Starting at the wider edge of the triangle, roll them up into the classic croissant shape, then place on a baking tray. Try to have the tip of the triangle on the bottom, so the weight of the croissant seals it.

4. For pain au chocolat, lay a stick of chocolate about an inch into the rectangle, roll the dough over the top, lay another stick, then roll up completely. Place these on a baking tray once done.

5. Now, leave them to prove in a warm place for 2-3 hours, until they have doubled in size. You should see that they are light and wobbly, and the layers should become noticeable around the edges.

baking (evening of bake)

1. Once doubled in size preheat your oven to 180c.

2. Mix the egg and the milk to make an egg wash.

3. Gently brush each pastry with the egg wash, then bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden on top.

4. Let them cool, then admire and devour.

5. These are equally amazing the next day, just reheat them for a few minutes to crisp up the tops again. I like having a few with butter, a few with butter and jam, and a few stuffed with cheese and ham.