hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with chocolate croissants
that's right remember that time we made croissants but we saved half the dough
so we can make something else later well these chocolate croissants are
something else and are they ever I mean I've been quoted as saying there is
absolutely nothing better than a homemade croissants but these come very
very close and the good news is they're actually pretty easy to make as long as
you don't care too much about how perfect looking they're which is
something I very deeply care about not caring about so with that let's go ahead
and get started and what I have here is my thawed but still very cold half batch
of croissant dough and what we'll do using just a little bit of flour is
press and roll this out into a rectangle that's gonna hopefully be about an
eighth of an inch thick and yes I'm using the term rectangle
very loosely since I'm pretty sure there's no word to describe the shape I
ended up with but nevertheless it was kind of rectangle ish and more
importantly was rolled out to my desired thickness and then once that's been
accomplished we'll go ahead and take a knife or this pizza cutter if you prefer
and attempt to cut these into six relatively evenly sized pieces and if
you're thinking at this point when that had been easier if you had actually
rolled this out into a rectangle well yes yes it would but I didn't and as
you'll see that's not actually gonna cause any real problems but anyway I'm
in a portion my dough into six pieces and then I'll go ahead and take the most
even one and show you how to form your chocolate croissant and the first step
for that would be to kind of pull and stretch the dough on one end here just a
little bit so we end up with sort of tapered ends and then once that's
happened we're gonna go ahead and apply a couple tablespoons of chopped
chocolate or chocolate chips but in two different spots alright the first about
an inch or so from the edge and then the second one about an inch or two away and
I really do recommend using a dark bittersweet chocolate here and I'll talk
about why a little bit later but anyway once our dough's been chocolate 'add
we'll go ahead and roll this up not too too tightly but not loose either and as
usual we'll attempt to end up with the seam somewhere on the bottom and that's
it we've just formed our first chocolate croissants and have five more to do and
since I started with a perfect piece let me use one of those
screwed up n pieces for the second one so after given one end a little bit of a
stretch we will apply our chocolate in two places separated by a couple inches
and the reason for that is when we roll this up we want a little bit of dough in
between that chocolate and by the way while chips will work here these just
seem to come out better if you use hand-chopped chocolate I can't explain
why and neither can the scientists probably because nobody asked them but
still and if you want as you roll this up you can put a little bit of an egg
wash at the end to keep that stuck together but if you end up with that
seam on the bottom it really shouldn't matter but suit yourself and then
speaking of egg wash once these have been stuffed and rolled and transferred
onto a Silpat lined baking sheet we'll go ahead and brush those with an egg
that's been beaten with a tablespoon of water and when you finish this step
don't throw away the egg wash because we're going to give these a second
coating after the proofing so what we want to do after these are egg washed is
let them sit in a warm spot for about an hour to an hour and a half or until they
look a little something like this and I'm not sure if they're actually going
to double in size during the proofing but they should puff up noticeably and
then assuming that's happened we'll go ahead and apply the second egg wash
before we bake these as well as sprinkling over one optional ingredient
and that would be some coarse at sea salt which I think looks and tastes
great but like I said up to you you are after all the Gus Van Zandt of your
chocolate croissant so skip that if you want but I do recommend it and then once
that set these are finally ready to bake so let's go ahead and transfer those
into the center of a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes or so or until they are
beautifully browned and look like this which I would describe is gorgeous and
enticing but before I continue on complimenting myself let me point out
one thing this is what happens if your seam is not on the bottom and too close
to the edge it will kind of spring open and have kind of a funky shape versus
this one where the seam did end up on the bottom and to most people would be
considered better looking so just a little bit of a teaching moment and now
it can get back to bragging how great these look is they transfer them onto a
rack to cool which is sometimes optional but not this time
all right we do not will not serve a chocolate croissant walls still warm
since to get the full effect the chocolate has to return to its solid
state so I went ahead and let mine cool for about an hour which seemed like
about three days before transferring those in this towel line basket and one
of the reasons it doesn't bother me that these are all different sizes and shapes
is because my guests are all different sizes in shapes so we got that going for
us which is nice but anyway I went ahead and took a few pictures at which point
it was time to try one and while I did to a fork scrape I hope you'll settle
for a serrated knife slice oh yeah that sounds good and as we gaze upon this
cross-section you may be thinking to yourself that is not enough chocolate
well with all due respect you could not be more wrong all right don't forget
that croissant dough is rich and buttery and flaky and delicious so we're just
looking for a little touch of bittersweet chocolate to accentuate that
and not overpower it alright we're not trying to create some kind of chocolate
donut here this is actually supposed to be a beautiful piece of buttery bread
studded with just little chunks of chocolate here and there and not to
overstate it but this is one of the first things I remember eating that made
me think about that area between sweet and savory which is an area I love and
try to visit as often as possible but anyway that's it chocolate croissants so
whether you're gonna make these because you have some croissant dough in the
freezer or you're actually gonna make a batch of dough from scratch I really do
hope you give these a try soon so hello to food wishes comm for all the
ingredient amounts or more info as usual and as always enjoy
you