Has anyone here ever made pain au chocolat? I plan on making it for a friend for their birthday and it looks a bit outside of my baking skill level. Can anyone comment on the difficulty of making it, or have any tips/tricks for making this a successful baked good? Any help that can be given will be much appreciated.
Is this the French pain au chocolat -- as in kind of like a croissant, but shaped like a rectangle and with chocolate inside? Sounds like a stupid question, but I was genuinely so surprised when I saw the title... Anyway, they're actually not that difficult to make (but long). Some recipes are pretty basic. I've never been able to equal one from the boulangerie, but they turn out quite good -- and delicious when hot. So, good luck. Maybe try making a batch beforehand? If they turn out nicely, I imagine you could freeze them and take them out again for the birthday (or make new ones), and if not, well, they were a practice run.
There appears to be an easy recipe on www.babble.com...you could substitute Nutella for the chocolate morsels...a good grocer or patisserie should have them as a stock item if you want to save yourself the labor.
Meh, we had such a hard time finding good croissants and pain au chocolat when we were living in the US. Also, couldn't bring myself to try the ones in the UK when I was there earlier this year. Oh dear, I'm such a snob. ^^ I think it's terribly cute that you call it "pain au chocolat." I wonder how you guys pronounce it.
Well, French-Canadian family. Its how I was introduced to it, so its all i've ever known it by Thanks for the help everyone, my sisters a baker so I'll probably just get her help. Shes never made it but i figure together we can cover it.
