Chocolate Croissants for Foodie Extravaganza

This months Foodie Extravaganza theme, chosen by Kathleen of Fearlessly Creative Mamas, is croissants.  January 30th is National Croissant Day....Viva La France.  Kathleen chose croissants because "they are super versatile, share your favorite croissant recipe or a recipe using croissants".

What is Foodie Extravaganza? It's when a group of bloggers get together and make a recipe using one main ingredient. Where do we get the ingredient? We look at The Nibble and pick something off of their list. Croissants are actually celebrated on January 30th, but it's in January, so it's fair game. You can check out our group Pinterest board for past recipes.

I had made crescent rolls in the past and I often use croissants for different dishes but I had never made homemade croissants before this challenge.  I found a recipe for Classic Croissants at FineCooking.com and decided to try my hand at them, adding chocolate to them and serving them with coffee at Frank's CPL class.

Making croissants is not difficult but it is very time consuming.  It takes 3 day of  preparation before you are ready to bake them.  The first day you make the dough and allow it to refrigerate overnight.

The dough is a yeast dough, however only cold products are used in the making of the dough and it is refrigerated right after it is done mixing so there is no large rise to the dough.  The next day you take the dough out and roll it to an 10 1/2" square. You are going to top this square with a 6" square piece of butter that you had rolled out previously and refrigerated.

Yep, that is a big ol slab of butter on that dough. This is the process called laminating the dough. At this point you are going to fold the dough into thirds.

Now that it is in this nifty little packet you are going to roll it out until it is 8"x 24" .  Just keep tucking the sides in to get it to grow longer without growing wider.

It doesn't have to be exact.  The directions had you use a yardstick. I used a ruler and guesstimated that it was pretty close to the size they wanted.

Now you fold this piece into an envelope type shape.  I don't know why....as I was doing this I was singing a phrase my Pops often said to me "Yours is not to question why, yours is just to do or die". So an envelope shape it is.

Then you place it on a baking sheet covered with parchment.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer for 20 minutes.  You repeat this process twice more but the last time you wrap the baking sheet completely with plastic wrap and leave it in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day...and I apologize because I had company so did not get any photos of this little adventure...you "wake the dough up" by pressing firmly along it's length with a rolling pin.  Now you want to make a long strip that is 44" long and only 8" wide.  I had to stop a couple of times during this process because the dough got too warm and the butter was starting to seep.  I simply folded whatever length I had into thirds, covered it with plastic wrap and stuck it back in the refrigerator. After the next game of cards was over, I pulled out the dough opened it and made it longer until it again started to get too warm.  Put it back into thirds in the fridge and played another round of card until I finally got close enough to the 44" length and decided I could get by with 13 croissants instead of 15.  

Now comes the cutting, shaping, egg washing and resting portion....again with no photos.  Once the dough is cut into 5"x 8" rectangles, you cut them crosswise into triangles add the chocolate and form into crescents.  Place onto parchment lined baking sheets and let rest for a few more hours.

Now, finally....we can bake them.  Coat them with another layer of egg wash....no you are not imagining it...these don't look like they have risen much at all.  Preheat the oven to 400* and position your racks in the top and lower thirds of the oven.  Place the sheets in the oven for 10 minutes and then rotate them and swap their positions. Bake for another 10 minutes or until nicely browned. I do have a photo of that!

Let cool on the baking sheets.  The directions said to place the baking sheets on a rack while the croissants cooled.  I put em on the stove grates, because why???  Then I broke one open and tried to get a photo of the flaky crust filled with the lovely "Divine" chocolate that I had received as a sponsor gift during #Choctoberfest.  Evidently, I need a lot of help with my photography skills. Please accept my apologies and take my word for it that it was a beautiful sight.

They looked lovely in the basket when I served them to the class.  They tasted awesomely delicious but, honestly......not any better than the croissants I get at the bakery.  Bottom line.....I am glad that I made these croissants.  Thank you Kathleen for expanding my baking knowledge.  In the future, if I am ever snowed into my house and bored out of my gourd, I may make these again but more likely I will just hit the bakery.

Finally...I am going to share the ingredients for these croissants with you and then link you right over to the 4 pages of directions that I (kinda) followed.  The directions for making them chocolate are on the bottom of page 4....just put chocolate in there before you roll them.

Chocolate Croissants

by Jeffery Hamelman from Fine Cooking

4 c. flour, more for rolling

1/2 c + 2 T. cold water

1/2 c + 2T. whole milk

1/4 c + 2 T. sugar

3 T. butter, softened

1 T + 1 t. instant yeast

2 1/4 t. table salt

1 1/4 c. cold unsalted butter

1 large egg

Get full directions at FoodNetwork.com

Let's see some other croissant creations!

• Beefy Green Chile Braid by Fearlessly Creative Mammas 
• Pain Au Jambon by Culinary Adventures with Camilla 
• Pain Au Chocolat by Making Miracles
• Sausage, Egg and Cheese Croissant with Maple Dijon Sauce by Tara's Multicultural Table
• Cinnamon and Apple Croissant Bread Pudding by The Freshman Cook 
• Chocolate Croissants by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Croque Monsieur Croissants by Caroline's Cooking 
• Almond Croissant French Toast by Sew You Think You Can Cook 
• Bacon Fig Dippers for Melty Cheese by Cooking with Carlee 
• Triple Meat Croissants Breakfast Casserole by Cookin' and Craftin'
• Coronation Chicken Horns by Food Lust People Love 
• Breakfast Croissant Ring by Our Good Life
• Baked Cinnamon Raisin Croissant French Toast from From Gate to Plate