Makes 16
Active time: 2 hours
Chilling time: 1–12 hours (overnight) plus 50 minutes
Rising time: 3 hours
Cooking time: 18–20 minutes
Storage: Up to 24 hours in the refrigerator, tightly covered in plastic wrap
Extracted from Chocolate: Recipes and Techniques from the Ferrandi School of Culinary Arts (Flammarion, 2019) by FERRANDI Paris. Photography © Rina Nurra2019.
Everyone knows the classic French croissant but why not change it up and add delicious chocolates to the mix. Here is our recipe.
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (9 oz./250 g) butter, preferably 84% butterfat, diced
- Scant 2/3 cup (2.5 oz./70 g) unsweetened cocoa powder, divided
- 2 cups (9 oz./250 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 cups (9 oz./250 g) pastry flour
- 2½ tsp (12 g) salt
- 1/3 cup (2.5 oz./70 g) sugar
- ½ cup (2 oz./60 g) powdered milk
- 0.5 oz. (15 g) fresh baker’s yeast
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) whole milk
- 1 cup plus 3 tbsp (280 ml) water
For the egg wash
- 3½ tbsp (2 oz./50 g) lightly beaten egg (about 1 egg)
- 3 tbsp (2 oz./50 g) egg yolk (about 2½ yolks)
- 3½ tbsp (50 ml) whole milk
Directions
1At least 1 hour before making the croissant dough (or ideally a day ahead), incorporate a heaping ¼ cup (1 oz./30 g) of the cocoa powder into the butter.
2Blend with a bowl scraper and then with your hands until thoroughly combined. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, preferably overnight.
3Combine the flours, place them on a work surface, and make a well in the center. Put the salt, sugar, powdered milk, and remaining cocoa powder in the well. Make another small well in the flour “wall” and crumble the fresh yeast into it. Carefully pour the whole milk and a little of the water over the yeast, and pour the rest over the ingredients in the main well.
4Gently mix the ingredients together in the center of the well with your fingers.
5Using a bowl scraper, draw the flour into the center of the well, combining it with the other ingredients.
6Knead the dough with your hands until smooth. Shape into a ball, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
7With a rolling pin, soften the cocoa powder-butter mixture and shape into a square. The butter should still be cold, but needs to be as malleable as the dough you have just made.
8Roll the dough so it is twice as long as the square of butter. Place the butter on the dough and wrap the dough around it to enclose it completely.
9Dust the work surface very lightly with flour and roll the dough into a rectangle measuring 10 × 24 in. (25 × 60 cm).
10Fold the dough in 3, making what is known as a single turn. Rotate the folded dough 90 degrees to the right.
11Roll out the dough again.
12Fold the dough in 4 to make a double turn: fold the shorter ends toward the center, one-third of the way down from the top and two-thirds up from the bottom, then fold in half. The dough now has 2½ folds. Cover in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
13Roll the dough into a rectangle measuring 9½ × 20 in. (50 × 24 cm), ⅛ in. (4 mm) thick. With the tip of a large knife, mark one long side of the dough at 3-in. (8-cm) intervals and then do the same on the opposite side, staggering the marks by 1¼ in. (4 cm). Cut the dough into triangles following the marks. Gently stretch each triangle with your hands, then roll the triangles up from the base to the tip to form the croissants.
14Whisk the egg wash ingredients together and brush over the tops of the croissants. Place a bowl of boiling water in a cool oven (75°F/25°C/gas on lowest setting), put the croissants on a non-stick baking sheet above, and let them rise for 3 hours. Remove and preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C/Gas mark 4). Brush the croissants again with the egg wash and bake for 18–20 minutes.
