Pains aux Raisins

I was torn over whether to make these or the pains au chocolat.  Did I want a luscious pastry cream with raisins, or intense bittersweet chocolate?  Turns out I didn't have to choose because each recipe required a half-batch of the same kind of dough!

I brought these along with the pain au chocolat to my last book club meeting, and it wasn't a surprise that everybody chose the chocolate variety.  But Isabelle, our organizer who comes from southern France, took the untouched pains aux raisins with her and said she ate them before she got to the highway.  "The  pains au chocolat were delicious,'' she said, ''but the pains aux raisins were out of this world!"  She added that they were very authentic, and that she doesn't dole out undeserved flattery.  Which is appreciated!  The consensus was the same at home.  Joe found a few I had squirreled away in the freezer to bring to my mother and sister in New York: "Hey, there are more pains aux raisins in here!!"  I forbade him from touching them.  Trust me, he more than ate his share!

Clockwise from top-left: The pastry cream is easy to make and dotted with plenty of vanilla seeds; the dough is then rolled up and sliced (don't forget to add your raisins, or you'll have to unroll like I did); the pains are proofed on a sheet pan; they tend to fall on their sides after rising, so I lay them flat.

The many layers bake up golden and flaky, and the pains are brushed with an apricot glaze.  The pastry cream becomes not so much a filling as an element of moisture and flavor.

Pains au Chocolat

Pains au Chocolat are my kind of treat: flaky, buttery dough concealing a piece of chocolate in the center.  They went over extremely well at my book club, especially with our leader, Isabelle, who hails from the Languedoc region of France.  She said they and the Pains aux Raisins (next post) were very authentic, and that the chocolate was perfect and not too sweet -- I used Valrhona Le Noir 61%.  Having no authenticity gauge myself and this being my first croissant, I was pleased to get such a ringing endorsement.  Plus, chocolate and buttery bread... what's not to like?

The recipe instructions may be long, but don't fret.  The dough-making was the laborious part, and all that's left is to roll it out and roll up the chocolate in it.  The proofing method is kind of bizarre, but was easy enough.  Updated note: I'm glad everyone likes the green cups, but they're espresso cups, not teacups -- just to give you an idea of how small the cups and pains actually are.

If your dough refuses to roll out and springs right back into place, let it rest in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or so.  I hate doing that because I want to be done with a task pronto, but it won't behave otherwise.  In the end, my rectangle was still an inch short because of the springy dough, but what the hey.  The pains still looked good to me!

I got Sarabeth's Bakery as a Christmas gift, and these and the Pains aux Raisins are the first recipes I have tried from it.  I'm looking forward to trying more!

Croissant Dough

Look at all the thin layers on this baby.  This croissant dough will be used in my next two posts.  I thought this was going to be a real project, and I psyched myself up for it.  It wasn't so difficult after making puff pastry, which is very similar.  If you can just set aside a block of time -- there are resting periods (both for the dough and yourself) -- it's very doable.  The timing was an intimidation factor.  The recipe from Sarabeth's Bakery says the dough must be frozen for a minimum of 24 hours and thawed for at least 8 hours, but cannot be frozen for more than 4 days.  So you'll have to choose two days: one in which you have time to make the dough, and another to bake it that comes at least 36 hours later but not more than 4 days.

Croissant dough is made much like puff pastry dough.  I was surprised not to see weight measurements for a bread recipe from a bakery book, but it worked out fine with volume measurements.  Clockwise from top left: The yeasted dough is made and then slashed with an X to represent four sections later; butter and flour are beat together and them formed into a square; the dough with the X is rolled out into four sections, and the butter is placed on the raised square in the middle; the dough flaps are wrapped all around the butter and flipped over.

Clockwise from top left: The second "book" turn of dough is folded slightly to the right, and then the left is brought over; then the entire piece of dough is folded in half; the third and final turn of dough is done (both the first and third turns are simply folded into thirds like a letter); and the dough is sliced in half before being wrapped in the freezer.

There are lots of steps, but don't be intimidated.  I wish I could include the illustrations that came with the book as a guide, but you can refer to some of mine.