Have you tried homemade croissants yet?
Today I’m sharing a croissant variation. Am I allowed to admit that these are even better than the original? Ultra thin layers. Buttery crispness. Melted chocolate. Confectioners’ sugar dusting. Simple. Decadent. There’s absolutely nothing on earth better than a warm chocolate croissant unless that warm chocolate croissant was proudly handmade in your own kitchen.
You’ve come to the right place today. 🙂
I’m not going into specifics today since I typed a novel about croissants the other week. Rather, we’ll focus our attention on rolling the croissants with chocolate. We’re starting with the same exact croissant dough. I talk about this a lot in the croissants recipe, but it’s worth repeating: croissant dough must remain cold and requires a lot of resting. Because of all that rest, there’s a time commitment to making this pastry. Which is why croissants are a delicious weekend project!
You’ll complete steps 1-12 in the original croissants recipe. Things change when it’s time to shape the dough. Once your dough has finished the 2nd 4 hour rest, roll and shape it into a long 8×20-inch rectangle. Use your pizza cutter and slice the rectangle down the center to create two 4×20-inch rectangles. Then slice across 3x to create eight 4×5-inch rectangles.
So far, this is exactly what you do when you make the original croissants.
Instead of slicing each of those rectangles diagonally into triangles, you’ll cut them in half to create 16 smaller rectangles.
You could definitely keep the same triangle shape as we do with regular croissants, but the rectangle shape protects the chocolate from oozing out too much. And you can fit more chocolate inside. 🙂
Speaking of chocolate!
There are special conveniently sized chocolate batons you can purchase—just search the internet for chocolate batons—but I’d rather use the same chocolate I use for everything else: baking chocolate. I just buy it at the grocery store. You can use any brand of baking chocolate you like best, but I prefer the thinness of Ghirardelli’s baking bars. They slice thinly and neatly, fitting snug inside the croissant dough.
I like to use a darker chocolate like bittersweet or semi-sweet.
Now let’s roll up the chocolate croissants. Take each rectangle and gently stretch it out with your hands to be 8 inches long. Place a few pieces of chocolate at one end and roll it up tightly inside.
Like a little sleeping bag for chocolate!
We’re back to the original croissant recipe from here on out. Allow the shaped chocolate croissants to proof at room temperature for 1 hour, then continue in the refrigerator for another. I prefer the shaped chocolate croissants to be cold going in the oven because they won’t spread as much. The chocolate croissants will rise and proof at room temperature and continue to do so in the refrigerator.
After this time, they’ll be a little more puffy and ready to bake.
Brush them with an egg wash and 20 minutes later, you’ll understand the hype. Like I said before, there’s absolutely nothing better than a homemade fresh croissant filled with a river of melted chocolate. They’re golden brown with hundreds of crisp flaky layers (and that’s from a dough we laminated 3x!).
A snow shower of confectioners’ sugar is necessary.
Chocolate croissants, or pain au chocolat in French!
By the way, you can whip up this shortcut recipe in only 20 minutes. Or make a loaf of croissant bread with slightly shorter rest times and easier shaping.
PrintHomemade Chocolate Croissants (Pain au Chocolat)
- Prep Time: 12 hours, 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 13 hours, 10 minutes
- Yield: 16 croissants
- Category: Pastries
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: French
Description
Extra flaky and buttery homemade chocolate croissants (Pain au Chocolat) are incredible warm from the oven. Recreate this French bakery classic at home!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp; 56g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 4 cups (500g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for rolling/shaping
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 Tablespoon active dry or instant yeast
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) cold whole milk
- one 4-ounce bar (113g) semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
- optional: confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Butter Layer
- 1 and 1/2 cups (340g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 Tablespoons (16g) all-purpose flour
Egg Wash
- 1 large egg
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) whole milk
Instructions
- Preliminary notes: I have lots of information to prepare you to make homemade chocolate croissants. A complete guide to making the croissant dough, with a video and step-by-step photographs, can be found in my original croissants recipe. That post will help you get through the first several steps. Additionally, you can see the post above for a visual for how the chocolate croissants are shaped, which begins in step 13 below. Make room in the refrigerator for a baking sheet. In step 6 and again in step 13, you will need room for 2 baking sheets.
- Make the dough: Cut the butter in four 1-Tablespoon slices and place in the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment (or you can use a handheld mixer or no mixer, but a stand mixer is ideal). Add the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Turn the mixer on low-medium speed to gently combine the ingredients for 1 minute. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the milk. Once all of the milk is added, turn the mixer up to medium speed and begin to knead the dough.
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rest. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly golfball-size) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rest. If not, keep kneading until it passes the windowpane test.
- Remove dough from the bowl and, with floured hands, work it into a ball. Place the dough on a lightly floured silicone baking mat lined, lightly floured parchment paper lined, or lightly floured baking sheet. (I recommend a silicone baking mat because you can roll the dough out in the next step directly on top and it won’t slide all over the counter.) Gently flatten the dough out, and cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator and allow the covered dough to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Shape the dough: Remove the dough from the refrigerator. I like to keep the dough on the silicone baking mat when I’m rolling it in this step because the mat is nonstick and it’s a handy guide for the exact measurement. Begin flattening out the dough with your hands. You’re rolling it out into a rectangle in this step, so shaping it with your hands first helps the stretchy dough. Roll it into a 14×10-inch rectangle. The dough isn’t extremely cold after only 30 minutes in the refrigerator, so it will feel more like soft play-doh. Be precise with the measurement. The dough will want to be oval shaped, but keep working the edges with your hands and rolling pin until you have the correct size rectangle.
- Long rest: Place the rolled out dough back onto the baking sheet (this is why I prefer a silicone baking mat or parchment because you can easily transfer the dough). Cover the rolled out dough with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator and allow the covered dough to rest in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight. (Up to 24 hours is ok.)
- Butter layer (begin this 35 minutes before the next step so the butter can chill for 30 minutes): In a large bowl using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the butter and flour together until smooth and combined. Transfer the mixture to a silicone baking mat lined or parchment paper lined baking sheet. (Silicone baking mat is preferred because you can easily peel the butter off in the next step.) Using a spoon or small spatula, smooth out into a 7×10-inch rectangle. Be as precise as you can with this measurement. Place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator and chill the butter layer for 30 minutes. (No need to cover it for only 30 minutes.) You want the butter layer firm, but still pliable. If it gets too firm, let it sit out on the counter for a few minutes to gently soften. The more firm the butter layer is the more difficult it will be to laminate the dough in the next step.
- Laminate the dough: In this next step, you will be rolling out the dough into a large rectangle. Do this on a lightly floured counter instead of rolling out on your silicone baking mat. The counter is typically a little cooler (great for keeping the dough cold) and the silicone baking mat is smaller than the measurement you need. Remove both the dough and butter layers from the refrigerator. Place the butter layer in the center of the dough and fold each end of the dough over it. If the butter wasn’t an exact 7×10-inch rectangle, use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to even out the edges. Seal the dough edges over the butter layer as best you can with your fingers. On a lightly floured counter, roll the dough into a 10×20-inch rectangle. It’s best to roll back and forth with the shorter end of the dough facing you. Use your fingers if you need to. The dough is very cold, so it will take a lot of arm muscle to roll. Again, the dough will want to be oval shaped, but keep working it with your hands and rolling pin until you have the correct size rectangle. Fold the dough lengthwise into thirds as if you were folding a letter. This was the 1st turn.
- If the dough is now too warm to work with, place folded dough on the baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, and refrigerate for 30 minutes before the 2nd turn. I usually don’t have to.
- 2nd turn: Turn the dough so the short end is facing you. Roll the dough out once again into a 10×20-inch rectangle, then fold the dough lengthwise into thirds as if you were folding a letter. The dough must be refrigerated between the 2nd and 3rd turn because it has been worked with a lot by this point. Place the folded dough on the baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, and refrigerate for 30 minutes before the 3rd turn.
- 3rd turn: Roll the dough out once again into a 10×20-inch rectangle. Fold the dough lengthwise into thirds as if you were folding a letter.
- Long rest: Place the folded dough on the lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. (Up to 24 hours is ok.)
- At the end of the next step, you’ll need 2 baking sheets lined with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. The dough is currently on a lined baking sheet in the refrigerator, so you already have 1 prepared!
- Shape the croissants: Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured counter, roll the dough out into an 8×20-inch rectangle. Use your fingers if you need to. Once again, the dough is very cold, so it will take a lot of arm muscle to roll. The dough will want to be oval shaped, but keep working it with your hands and rolling pin until you have the correct size rectangle. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, slice the dough in half vertically. Each skinny rectangle will be 4 inches wide. Then cut 3 even slices horizontally, yielding 8 4×5-inch rectangles. See photo above for a visual. Cut each rectangle in half lengthwise so you have 16 2×5-inch rectangles. Work with one rectangle at a time. Using your fingers or a rolling pin, stretch it to be about 8 inches long. Do this gently as you do not want to flatten the layers. Place a few small pieces of chocolate in a single layer at one end and tightly roll the dough up around the chocolate. Make sure the end is on the bottom. Repeat with remaining dough, placing the shaped croissants on 2 lined baking sheets, 8 per sheet. Loosely cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil and allow to rest at room temperature (no warmer! I suggest just keeping on the counter) for 1 hour, then place in the refrigerator to rest for 1 hour or up to 12 hours. (Or freeze, see freezing instructions. I prefer the shaped croissants to be cold going into the oven.
- Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C).
- Egg wash: Whisk the egg wash ingredients together. Remove the croissants from the refrigerator. Brush each lightly with egg wash.
- Bake the croissants: Bake until croissants are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Rotate the pans halfway through baking. If croissants show signs of darkening too quickly, reduce the oven to 375°F (190°C).
- Remove chocolate croissants from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes before serving. They will slightly deflate as they cool. If desired, dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.
- Croissants taste best the same day they’re baked. Cover any leftover croissants and store at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. You can also freeze for up to 3 months, then thaw on the counter or overnight in the refrigerator. Warm up to your liking.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Croissants are perfect for getting started ahead of time. The dough can rest for 4 hours or overnight in step 5 and again in step 11. You can also freeze the dough after the 3rd turn in the lamination process (after step 10). Instead of the 4 hour rest in the refrigerator in step 11, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap or aluminum foil, place in a freezer zipped-top bag, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator and continue with step 12. You can also freeze the shaped croissants after they rest for 1 hour at room temperature in step 13. (Before placing in the refrigerator.) Cover them tightly and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw completely in the refrigerator, then bake as directed.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Stand Mixer (preferred), Hand Mixer, or Glass Mixing Bowl with Wooden Spoon / Silicone Spatula | Rolling Pin | Pizza Cutter | Pastry Brush | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Baking Sheet | Cooling Rack
- Yeast: I use and recommend Red Star Platinum, an instant yeast. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Chocolate: You can find 4 ounce chocolate baking bars in the baking aisle. I recommend using Ghirardelli brand because the bars are thin and the thin pieces roll up neatly in the croissant dough. I use bittersweet chocolate, but you can use milk chocolate, semi-sweet, or darker chocolate.
- Keep Dough Cold: Make sure the dough is ALWAYS cold. If it warms up too much, stop what you’re doing and place the dough back in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
- Floured Surface: Lightly flour the work surface, your hands, the dough, and the rolling pin as you work.
- Air Bubbles: If there are air bubbles in your dough, pop them with your fingers or a toothpick, then lightly flour where you popped the air bubble.
- Croissants for Brunch: I recommend starting the recipe the day before in the early afternoon. Complete steps 1-10, then let the laminated dough have a long rest in the refrigerator overnight (step 11). Begin step 13 2-3 hours before brunch.
- Dough adapted from Joy of Baking, Food & Wine, and Epicurious
Keywords: chocolate croissants
This is a perfect lockdown project! Not something I’d usually have time or patience for but oh my goodness they were so worth all the faff. They tasted as if they’d just been picked up from a little French patisserie, thank you for such a well explained recipe. The video was really helpful too.
★★★★★
Hi Sally, thank you for your amazing recipe and guide! I’ve made this recipe and your classic butter croissant now, and both resulted in slightly underdone croissants! The outsides were golden and flaky though, so I’m wondering what I should change to the baking time & temperature to improve the baking all the way through?
Hi Terra, Next time try keeping them in the oven a bit longer. If the outside is beginning to brown too quickly you can loosely cover the pan with foil.
Hi sally! Thank you for the detailed recipe and pictures and the videos. I tried to make the chocolate croissants for the first time and my croissants looked promising until I put them into oven. The butter melted out out of the dough and the croissants got burned at the bottom and they did not rise and not flakey. Any suggestions? I thought I followed your instructions closely.
Hi GeeGee! I’m happy to help. The butter leaking and burning has happened to me before as well. The cause is typically laminating with butter that is too cold. It breaks and rips the dough which leads to leakage. Make sure your butter is soft. If at any point in the shaping/folding steps the butter is hard underneath the layers of dough, let the dough sit at room temperature until the butter has softened.
Hi Sally! I love your recipes and just made this one. I had doubts along the way in my ability to do this, but they came out SO good, SO much better than the store!
But because you said these are better the day they are baked, and in step 13 you say they can only be left in the fridge for up to 3 hours, rolled up with the chocolate already inside. What would happen if I did end up having to leave the dough in the fridge? Would it over expand/not rise right?
Thanks for your time!
★★★★★
Another question, when baked, the top few layers are super flakey, there’s somewhat a gap, then the layers surrounding the chocolate are flat, doughy/chewy and looks uncooked and forms a pouch of chocolate inside at the base(inner few layers sink?) even though the croissant itself is cooked and golden. Am I doing something wrong or should it be this way? Please let me know, thanks!
They still taste incredible though, just wondering how to get a more even distribution of layers throughout when the croissant is cut in half and displayed(no large gap).
★★★★★
Hi Tiffany, I’m so happy you tried this recipe and enjoyed it! You have two options for making the dough ahead of time. You can freeze the dough after the 3rd turn in the lamination process (after step 10). Or you can let the laminated dough have a long rest in the refrigerator overnight (step 11). See recipe notes for details. You can also freeze the baked croissants!
I love how these turned out! They were so flaky and buttery, I would use more chocolate next time because the dough expands so much and hides the chocolate. The directions were easy to follow along to as well (I am 13).
★★★★★
My first experience with making croissants and quite successful! I made half of them croissants and half with chocolate (family preference), and they were nice and flaky. I had 86% Ghirardelli which was a bit too dark. Will try 60% next time.
★★★★★
Yum! What a fun date night activity. It’s pretty hands-off but still feels like baking. We made the coconut milk version. It didn’t taste coconut-y at all. My favorite topping was crushed freeze-dried strawberries (it’s like inside-out chocolate dipped strawberries…mmmmmm!), and hubby’s favorite was chopped walnuts.
★★★★★
I loved this recipe and I couldn’t resist having a couple right out of the oven (even though they were for a group event the next day).
They were delicious, buttery, and flaky. But they were so ugly! I got a HUGE puff and they unrolled themselves during baking even though I was careful to put the seam on the bottom. Any tips to help prevent this?
★★★★★
Hi Heather! So glad you enjoyed these croissants. Try rolling the dough out to be a bit flatter (slightly larger than 8×20 inches), so the rectangles are larger (and therefore, thinner). Roll them up SUPER tight and keep that seam on the bottom. I think this will help for next time!
Would regular chocolate chips work instead of baking chocolate?
Hi Lydia, I prefer real chocolate for the best texture. Most chocolate chips contain stabilizers to help them hold their shape (perfect in cookies!) but prevents them from melting evenly.
Hey all, I have a pastry chef tip for you! Use a chocolate with less than 50% coco butter percentage. In doing this, you stop chocolate from leaking out the sides and leaving unpleasant looking chocolate stains down your pastry!
★★★★★
I’m hoping to start this and bring the dough over to my mom’s house after the 3rd turn and long rest (step 11), to finish it with her there. After about 24 hours in the fridge, I’ll drive 35 minutes with the dough in the car. Should I put it back in the fridge at my mom’s house to let it get extra cold again before cutting and shaping? It’s winter and I’ll use the A/C in my car to try to keep the dough cold!
★★★★★
Hi Vanessa! Yes, I would refrigerate the dough again to ensure it’s extra cold before continuing.
This recipe was great! I consider myself a good cook, but not necessarily an experienced baker. I followed the recipe exactly up until baking. In my oven it seemed like they were getting too brown too fast without fully cooking on the inside, so I brought the temp down to 375 and cooked for more like 25-30 minutes . They were perfect, and everyone who tried them raved about them. Thanks for the amazing recipe!
★★★★★
Made these this weekend and wow they are amazinggggg . A few quick notes that may help . Yes this take a long time ( so worth it ). When rolling the dough I noticed a few spots where the butter was poking through the dough- don’t worry , still turned out great ! Super important – make sure to TIGHTLY roll the croissants as the recipe states . I had a few that began to unroll in the oven . I still ate them lol
★★★★★
Hey Sally! Do u think I can add cheese instead of chocolate?
That should be just fine!
These are delicious! Some of mine spread and cracked at the top. I feel like I didn’t get those great layers you can see from the side. Maybe overworked? Thanks for the great recipe!!
I followed this recipe to the letter, and it has a couple of issues. The rectangle sizes are off. If you try to wrap a 14″ sheet of dough around a 7″ sheet of butter, it will be too short because that doesn’t account for the dough having to go around the edge of the butter. Plus the dough rectangle is elastic and shrinks a bit as it rests. Make the dough rectangle on the big side and the butter rectangle a bit smaller.
And maybe it’s just my oven, but 400 degrees for 20 min is too short and hot. The croissants were dark on the outside and raw dough in the middle. Disappointing after spending all that time on the lamination! Bake them at 375 or even 350 for at least 25 minutes.
★★
So, so delicious!!! I did it over a weekend (started Friday night and served them for brunch Sunday morning). I used more chocolate than the recipe called for because we love chocolate. They were buttery and flaky with a beautiful color, and were delicious both fresh from the often and cooled down, which let the crumb set a bit more. One thing to note is these turn out quite small, as other reviewers have said–they didn’t puff up much. A good excuse to eat two 🙂 I froze some of the shaped ones at the very end and my fingers are crossed those will eat up well! Thank you Sally!
★★★★★
My sons requested that I make these for Easter dessert. My whole family agreed that they just needed more chocolate… maybe a chocolate drizzle over the top as well, maybe. So, we enjoyed them, but didn’t love them. That being said, I love your croissant recipe. I appreciate so much your detailed instructions and tips and videos. They are very helpful! And despite the fact that I’ve read through this recipe a few times prior to making them, because I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing, I stupidly misunderstood one instruction about cutting the dough into rectangles. It was my fault. SO, some turned out bigger than others. The big ones, of course, were a little doughy, but the smaller ones were absolutely perfect. They had nice layers, perfectly baked, and I LOVE the crackle sound when you bite into them. This croissant recipe is definitely a keeper. I might just leave the chocolate out or add a chocolate drizzle. Thank you so much for sharing your detailed recipes. They’re very helpful!
★★★★
Hi, made these twice. The first time they were truly amazing. The second time, when I put them in the oven, the butter melted out out of the dough and they kind of fried and didn’t rise. What do you think I did wrong? Thank you 🙂
they came out a little smaller than I expected, didn’t puff much, but my word they’re delicious. Fantastic recipe
★★★★★
Hi Sally! I want to make this for a larger group and the size of the results look a bit big. Have you tried or can recommend different dimensions I can work with for smaller, and more croissants in the results? Thanks!
★★★★★
Hi Sarah! I have NOT tried smaller dimensions yet, but you can certainly play around with sizes. Make sure they are long enough to roll so they don’t unravel and report back with anything you try!
Wow!! These were so tasty, very flaky. We loved them! Especially with some cinnamon sugar… and melted butter!! Next time we’re even gonna do a savory batch filled with cheese and a sweet batch filled with fruit/jam instead of chocolate. Thank you so much for the recipe!
Can you make these with nutella instead of chocolate?
Hi Lorna! A few readers have tried it with success, though rolling them up gets a little messy.
I know that I’m late to the party, but wanted to let you know that your croissants have inspired me. I made sourdough croissants with banket filling (Dutch pastery almond paste filling). They were by far the best thing I’ve ever made, and I bake a lot. Thank you! I come back to your blog time after time for inspiration, and I’m never disappointed. Every recipe of yours I’ve made has turned out, which I can’t say of many bloggers out there.
Thank you so much for such a kind comment, Laura! Wow – your croissants sound simply amazing!
Well I made them. They really are wonderful. I’m trying to freeze some before baked. I’d like to have some to pop in the oven for company. I put some sweetened cream cheese and raspberry compote in some too. Wow. I did pay myself on the back.
Made your croissants today with my sister Irene and we were thrilled with the results. And the photos turned out great
First time make these and they were great.
★★★★★