Pain au Chocolat (Chocolate Croissants)

Dark chocolate oozing out of a warm Pain au Chocolate fresh out of the oven!

Sometimes I just feel like a nice, warm, flaky croissant to bite into and what's even better than a warm croissant is one filled with oozing dark chocolate! It's the perfect after dinner treat with a fancy name that's so easy you'll wonder why you haven't made it before - and the leftovers are perfect to enjoy with your coffee the next morning!

This recipe isn't mine, but from FrenchGuyCooking on YouTube (click here to see his recipe video!). He really makes French cooking and just cooking in general seem like such a fun and easy thing to do, rather than a chore, which is exactly how I see cooking should be viewed! Cooking should be something that you look forward to and enjoy...with the added perk of having a meal or a snack at the end of it!
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Pain au Chocolat (Chocolate Croissants)

Ingredients:

          4 sheets puff pastry
          220g block of good quality dark chocolate
          Butter, melted
          3-4 tbsp. icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
2. Cut your chocolate into sticks, breadth-wise, halving the indented squares

   

   Chocolate sticks cut for Pain au Chocolat (I only ended up using 3 squares per croissant)

3. Cut your puff pastry sheet into thirds
4. Brush to cover surface with melted butter
5. Dust with icing sugar
6. Stack 2 strips on top of one another (leave the other strip for the next pastry sheet)
7. Cut the stack in half
8. Place the chocolate stick approx. 1 cm from the right hand side of the stack and roll (like you would sushi) once
9. Place a second chocolate stick along the seam where you rolled your first chocolate stick and roll again to secure the chocolate
10. Cut and discard excess pastry
11. Arrange all croissants on a lined baking tray
12. Brush with egg wash (1 egg + 1 tbsp. water per egg)
13. Bake until golden brown, rotating the tray half way through cooking if you oven doesn't distribute even heat

****Tips: 

This is the perfect recipe for you to use up leftover store bought pastry, as I had when I bought pastry to make my quiche Lorraine with spinach! So delicious and it also makes for a French themed mid-week dinner when paired with quiche.

Complementing Recipes:

- Quiche Lorraine (+ Spinach)

Click here for the recipe! Great egg-based savoury tart that is sure to be a crowd pleaser with its onion, bacon, cheese and spinach filling!
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Like I said earlier, I love to enjoy these pastries with my coffee the next morning for breakfast! All you need to do is warm it up in a mini toaster oven and the chocolate will go back to its oozy consistency and the pastry will give a beautifully flaky crunch to every bite!

I'd love to see your versions of my recipes if you try them! Feel free to send them through to my email address; on Instagram with the tag (@unadornedeats) and/or hash-tag (#unadornedeats); or attach them to a comment below!

Love and luck in your cooking!

- Unadorned Eats

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References:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tNRLcJAtSw