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- So basically I can make you anything on the menu.
- No! - Or even not on the menu.
- Really? - Mhm, just name it.
- Okay. Wow.
Oh, what about a warm chocolate croissant?
- Oh, that's my specialty.
- [Andrew] Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week,
we're taking a look at the chocolate croissant
from the delightful mature love story It's Complicated.
I got one right here.
Let's take a look at that cross section.
I'm just kidding, we gotta make it first.
Into the bowl of a stand mixer goes 180 grams
of bread flour, 180 grams of pastry flour,
two teaspoons of instant dry yeast, and 40 grams of sugar.
Whisk those together before adding one tablespoon
of kosher salt, 36 grams of soft European-style butter,
butter fingers, and 240 grams
of 70 to 75 degree Fahrenheit milk.
Shut it down and knead it up for about one to two minutes
until it is soft, tacky, a little lumpy,
not sticky, homogenous, and dough-like.
We're stretching that into a taut ball and dropping it
into an oiled bowl where it's gonna proof one to two hours
of room temperature, or until it has grown by 50 to 100%,
at which point we're gonna turn it out into a well-floured
work surface, and through a mixture of rolling, stretching,
and teasing, we're going to shape it into an 8 by 12 inch
rectangle measuring about a half an inch thick.
At this stage, you don't have to be super precise,
but the more precise you are,
the cleaner results you're gonna get down the line.
We're this guy up in plastic wrap and placing him
in the fridge while we make our butter square.
I have 226 grams of unsalted European-style butter
that I'm going to lightly flour and pound out
into whatever can be charitably called a rectangle
and even more charitably be folded in half
before being pounded and rolled out into
yet another rectangle, folded in half again, and repeated
until the butter is basically flexible enough
that it can be folded without too much breakage.
Now I want to shape it into a rectangle about half the size
of the lean dough that we have hanging out in the fridge.
Once that's done, we're wrapping in plastic wrap
and fridging for no more than 15 minutes
before letting these two get to know each other.
We're starting by brushing any excess flour
off the lean dough, placing the butter square on one side,
closing the whole thing up, just like a book,
and pinching it shut, not like a book.
Make sure that there is no avenue
from which the butter can escape its doughy tomb,
which we're gonna do our best to shape into
a clean rectangle, which we're gonna roll out,
at first by pressing dimples into the dough,
pressing down gently, and making sure to pop
any air bubbles that we come across in our travels,
eventually rolling it out to a rectangle about
10 by 16 inches, which we're gonna fold into thirds
like a pamphlet, trying to keep everything as even
and rectangular as possible before wrapping in plastic wrap
and popping in the fridge for 30 minutes
before rinsing and repeating, not just once but twice,
wrapping plastic wrap and refrigerating
for 30 minutes between turns.
And there you have it, the better part of a day
and many joules of energy expended, croissant dough.
No, my hands aren't shaking from all the rolling.
You're imagining that.
Then, after at least one night in the fridge, up to three,
it's finally time to make like Meryl and romantically,
sillily, turn this into some chocolate croissant.
We're starting by gently pressing and eventually
rolling the dough into rectangle about 10 by 16 inches,
most importantly, about a quarter inch thick.
We're using our sharpest, or in this case,
our only pizza cutter to trim it down to a rectangle
that measures 10 by 12 inches.
We're then placing small marks every four inches
on the dough so that we can cut it down into isosceles
triangles measuring four inches wide at their base.
Then once we've designated the outside triangles
as oblong snacks for the chef, we're gonna press,
almost smear, the tip of the triangle into the work surface
so that we can stretch it out into a larger
and wider triangle.
This, of course, was done to some humorous effect
in the film using that triangle to emulate anything
from a broad to a beard.
Now for the weird part.
We're gonna place a little notch at the base of the triangle
and in an act that most French folks would consider heresy,
we're gonna roll these guys up into little croissant
with boutons of chocolate inside.
Normally, this dough is just rolled into little logs
with boutons of chocolate to make pain au chocolat,
but I'm curious to see how it turns out,
so I'm gonna proof these at room temperature
on parchment paper-lined baking sheets covered in
oiled plastic wrap while I make an egg wash.
I've got one large egg yolk that I'm gonna combine
with an 8th teaspoon of kosher salt, a half teaspoon
of sugar, and one tablespoon of heavy cream, tiny whisking
until homogenous and retrieving our proven croissant,
which I reoriented off camera,
sorry for the visual confusion.
Now, when brushing these down, you wanna be very very
careful not to brush the cut sides of the croissant dough,
something you can literally see me in this moment realize,
run over to my computer to verify and return here
to confirm that I did indeed screw this up.
So learn from my mistake.
Don't brush the cut sides of your croissant dough.
It can impede its rise.
But after baking at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes
and then 375 for an additional 15 to 20 minutes,
these guys are still looking pretty good.
I'm getting them onto a wire rack immediately
and letting them cool at least until they're not piping hot.
And now, finally, that webby, chocolatey cross section
we've all been waiting for.
Oh, that's disappointing.
Seems as though I have a big old air gap in there,
but also that my chocolate has migrated to the outside
of the pastry, earning this not a Hollywood handshake,
but rather a Paul poke.
So I'm gonna try this again.
This time trimming my croissant dough down
to three by six inch rectangles for the much easier to shape
and prepare pain au chocolat.
Simply place two boutons at the end of your pastry,
roll it up, once the dough covers the chocolate,
place two more in front of the dough and roll it into a log.
Give it a little press to make sure that everything
stays sealed, rinse and repeat, and there you have it,
the much easier pain au chocolat dough orientation,
which likewise, we're gonna cover and proof
at room temperature for one to two hours
until grown by about 50%, taking great care
not to brush the cut sides of our dough with our egg wash,
and same procedure, 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes,
lower to 375 for an additional 15 to 20,
baking until deeply brown and thickest points registering
200 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit.
And there you have it, classic pain au chocolat,
a more traditional form factor for chocolate
and more easier to make than their twirly
crescent-shaped cousins.
You can see all the buttery flaky layers
exploding into and away from one another,
and the interior is delightfully webby and doily-like,
of course, with double thick boutons of chocolate.
So maybe I'll save the croissont
for when I'm trying to impress Steve Martin.
Thanks again to Cash App for sponsoring today's episode.
Don't forget to download Cash App today
and use code BABISH22 to get $15 for free
and $10 will be donated to No Kid Hungry.