Flaky and buttery homemade Chocolate Croissant will make your morning so much more delicious. Now this is something worth waking up for.
Have you been following along with the Croissant Series on the blog this month? If you’ve missed it somehow, be sure to check out the previous posts:
- Part 1 – How to make Croissant
- Part 2 – Cinnamon Twists made from Croissant dough scraps
Because today, we will be building upon the first recipe in the series and make Chocolate Croissant. But don’t worry, the recipe card has all the information you’ll need to make Chocolate Croissant from beginning to end.
Chocolate Croissant Recipe Tips and Tricks
- I prefer a French rolling pin for this recipe as it puts more even pressure on the dough for more even lamination.
- Definitely invest in a kitchen scale. It’s cheap and it comes in handy not just for this recipe but for so many others. I use it daily.
- A pizza cutter to help speed up the slicing and dicing is also useful to keep around.
- I used dark chocolate melting wafers in this recipe. Feel free to substitute any other kind of chocolate you prefer.
- Be sure to save the dough scraps to make Cinnamon Twists instead of throwing them away. Store in an airtight container in the freezer or the refrigerator if you plan to use them within the next couple days.
You can refer to the previous post How to make Croissant for step by step photos of Day 1 and Day 2 activities of making the poolish and making the croissant dough. At the end of Day 2, the instructions will be different for making Chocolate Croissant and will continue as follow.
Day 3 (or day 2 continuation) – Form the croissants
Make egg wash and take the dough out of the freezer (or fridge), work with one piece at a time while the other one rest in the refrigerator. Place the dough with the short end facing you and roll out to about 18”x10”. The ends are not going to be perfectly straight. That’s okay, we will trim them off.
Trim the dough into a perfect rectangle about 17”x9”. Cut into half length wise and cut each half into 5 pieces, each about 4 ½” x 3 ⅜”. This will give you 10 rectangles.
For each piece of dough, use 4 chocolate wafers – broken up, or about ¼ oz of chocolate chips. Place half of the chocolate along the shorter edge of the dough, about ½” away from the edge, and the other half right about the middle. Brush the opposite edge with egg wash. Roll it up. Place the formed croissant on a parchment line baking sheet.
Repeat everything with the second piece of dough. Allow the croissant to proof up to 5 hours at room temperature. Brush the top with egg wash before baking. And allow croissants to cool before serving since they will continue to cook as soon as you take them out of the oven. This recipe makes 20 chocolate croissants.
📖 Recipe card
Chocolate Croissant
Ingredients
Poolish
- 100 g all-purpose flour ((¾ cup))
- 100 g warm water ((½ cup))
- A pinch of active dry yeast
Dough
- 500 g all-purpose flour ((3 ½ cup + 2 tablespoon))
- 75 g granulated sugar ((¼ cup + 2 tablespoon + 1 ½ teaspoon))
- 15 g kosher salt ((2 ½ teaspoon))
- 100 g unsalted butter ((about 3.5 oz))
- 10 g active dry yeast ((1 tablespoon))
- 200 g water ((about 1 cup))
For Lamination
- 330 g unsalted butter in one block ((about 11.6 oz))
Egg wash
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon of water
Chocolate Filling
- 5 oz of chocolate chips or melting wafers
Instructions
Day 1 - Make the poolish
- Mix 100 g of AP flour with a pinch of active dry yeast and 100 g of warm water in a small bowl, cover and let ferment at room temperature over night, for at least 15 hours and preferable longer.
Day 2 - Make the dough
- Cube 100 g of unsalted butter and allow to soften at room temperature before mixing into the dough.
- Also let the big block of butter to be used for lamination soften at room temperature.
- Measure out all ingredients in separate bowls to ensure a smooth process.
- Warm the water to about 100°F and add it to the stand mixer bowl.
- Stir in 2 teaspoons of sugar and the yeast and let bloom for at least 15 minutes. Use sugar from the amount specified in the ingredient list and not in excess.
- When the yeast mixture is puffy, add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl including the poolish, flour, remaining sugar, salt and soften butter.
- Knead with the dough hook for 20 minutes.
- Grease a large glass bowl with oil.
- Turn the dough out from the mixing bowl onto a lightly floured board or counter. Flatten with your hand and stretch into a small rectangle, fold it like a letter. Repeat once more.
- Place the dough into the oiled bowl and let rise for 1.5 hours.
- Place the big block of butter on top of a piece of parchment paper, place another piece of parchment paper on top of the butter and flatten it with a rolling pin into a rectangle about 6.5” x 7.5”. Wrap it up in parchment paper and refrigerate until ready to use.
- When the dough in the bowl has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured counter and flatten by hand into a rectangle about 10” x7.5”, place on a parchment line baking sheet, wrap with plastic and place in freezer for 20 mins.
- Meanwhile, take the piece of butter you prepared early out of the refrigerator to allow it to soften a bit.
- Take the dough out of the freezer and roll out into a rectangle about 16” x 7.5”.
- Place the cold but slightly soft flattened butter rectangle in to the middle and fold the dough over it. Pinch the two ends to encase the butter.
- Dough lamination turn 1: turn the dough so the short end/open end faces you and roll out to a rectangle about 22”x9”. Fold into third like a letter. Place the folded rectangle on the baking sheet and freeze for 15-20 minutes until the dough is cold but still pliable.
- Dough lamination turn 2: take the dough out of the freezer and place the short end facing you again with the opening to the right, roll out to a rectangle about 22”x9”, fluffing, flipping and turning the dough as you go. Fold into third like a letter. Place the folded rectangle on the baking sheet and freeze for 15-20 minutes until the dough is cold but still pliable.
- Dough lamination turn 3: repeat everything in dough lamination turn 2.
- End of lamination: take the dough out of the freezer and place the short end facing you again with the opening to the right, roll out to a rectangle about 24”x9”, fluffing, flipping and turning the dough as you go. This time, cut the dough in half crosswise into two 12”x9” rectangle. Place parchment paper between the two pieces. At this point, to continue working, freeze the dough for 15-20 minutes. Or if you want to continue the next day, wrap well and refrigerate overnight.
Day 3 (or day 2 continuation) - Form the croissants
- Beat one egg with 1 tablespoon of water to make egg wash.
- Take the dough out of the freezer (or fridge), work with one piece at a time while the other one rest in the refrigerator. Place the dough with the short end facing you and roll out to about 18”x10”. The ends are not going to be perfectly straight. That’s okay, we will trim them off.
- Trim the dough into a perfect rectangle about 17”x9”. Cut into half length wise and cut each half into 5 pieces, each about 4 ½” x 3 ⅜”. This will give you 10 rectangles.
- For each piece of dough, use 4 chocolate wafers - broken up, or about ¼ oz of chocolate chips. Place half of the chocolate along the shorter edge of the dough, about ½” away from the edge, and the other half right about the middle. Brush the opposite edge with egg wash. Roll it up. Place the formed croissant on a parchment line baking sheet.
- Repeat the previous steps with the rest of the cut up rectangles. Place croissant at least 2” apart from each other on the baking sheet.
- Then repeat all previous step with the second piece of dough that has been resting in the refrigerator.
- Sprinkle plastic wrap with some flour and cover the baking sheet. Let proof at room temperature for 4-5 hours.
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Brush egg wash lightly all over each croissant.
- Bake one tray at a time for 35-40 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack before serving.
Notes
- Work as quickly as you can during the dough lamination steps. At any time during these steps, if you feel that the dough is getting too warm or too elastic. Pop it back into the freezer for 5 minutes to keep it cold so the butter doesn’t melt into the dough, and to relax the gluten.
- Use only as much flour as needed while rolling to keep dough from sticking. This dough should be very easy to handle and should not require a lot of extra flour, except for perhaps at the very end.
- Save the dough scraps in a container and refrigerate or freeze, use later to make Cinnamon Twists.
Nutrition
This recipe is adapted from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery
En vez de agua, puedo usar leche?
Sí, asegúrese de hervir la leche a fuego lento, pero déjela enfriar por debajo de los 100 grados F antes de usarla.
Planning to make for Christmas morning. If I want to prep head of time and bake these that morning, can I shape through step 6 and then refrigerate overnight, take out for a hour, and then bake? Is there another process you would recommend? Thank you.
Hi Ana, yes, I would definitely prep ahead since making these from scratch will take 2-3 days anyways. Work through Step 6 on Day 3 in the recipe card, but notice that I proof for 4-5 hours before baking so you may need to take them out for well over an hour. Because it’s been so cold, you may not see them rise a lot proofing overnight in the refrigerator. You want them really puffy before baking. So just check and adjust as needed. I would definitely take them out of the fridge as soon as you wake up Christmas morning and place them in a warm place. You could turn the oven into a proofing box by placing a tray with boiling water on the bottom rack and place the croissants on the rack above.
what would you recommend covering the poolish with?
I would use a clean kitchen towel.
berry good recipe. Be prepared for a lot of waiting and in my opinion- extra chocolate! Although it would be helpful to add more visual aids to better understand each process.
If you’re looking for more visuals on how to make the croissant dough, take a look at my photos from the croissant post.
Thank you So Very Much. Yummy.
Nice Article!! Thanks for sharing the recipe
Thank you Tony!
I love love love chocolate croissants and yours look so perfectly flaky too
One of my fav for sure! Thanks Marie!