Pain au Chocolat from @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here. I'm so excited that Murder at the Rusty Anchor will be out on June 25, and I wanted to share a recipe from the book with you.

But first, some background. Anywhere in the French-speaking world, and now in many US and Canadian bakeries, a puff pastry wrapped around a piece of dark chocolate is always available. When I lived with my young sons and then-husband for a year each in Mali and Burkina Faso, both former French colonies in west Africa, picking up several pain au chocolat (literally, chocolate bread) when we went out was always a treat.

The pastry is like a croissant, puffy inside and crispy outside. The line of dark chocolate down the middle feels like dessert for breakfast. It's still hard to resist buying one if I stop into a bakery for something else. And why should I resist?

So I had to have baker Tim, Mac Almeida's husband in my Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, offer these treats in his Cape Cod bakery.

Also, my older son Allan has always loved pain au chocolat. I went to see him for his birthday Wednesday, so I made this batch specially for him. 

The two of us in the NICU with his preemie daughter (born three months early) six months ago. Ida Rose is now a fat, healthy, chortling baby! New dads deserve pastries, right?

Alas, the pastries came out smaller and less sweet than when I tested the recipe for the book. 

C'est la vie, as they say in Paris!

Pain au Chocolat 

Tim makes his own pastry for these chocolate-filled croissants, but I went the easy route and bought a box of puff pastry dough. (Next time I'll make my own, but that's a lot of work.)

 

Ingredients

Puff pastry

4 ounces good quality baking chocolate, cut into skinny pieces

1 egg

2 tablespoons whole milk

Powdered sugar, sifted.

 

Directions

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

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. The dough is very cold, so it will take a lot of arm muscle to roll. 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 into skinny rectangles 4 inches wide. Cut 3 even slices horizontally, yielding 8 4×5-inch rectangles. 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 the baking sheets, 8 per sheet. 

(Note: I ended up making only one sheet of the puff pastry and only one pan, since my croissants were so small.)

Loosely cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil and allow to rest at room temperature for 1 hour, then place in the refrigerator to rest for 1 hour or up to 12 hours.

Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C).

Whisk the egg and milk together. 

Remove the croissants from the refrigerator. Brush each lightly with egg wash.

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 pain au chocolat 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.

Enjoy with coffee or an afternoon sherry!

Readers: What's your special bakery treat? I'll send one of you my special author aprons!

🍫🥮🍫

A Case for the Ladies is out and available wherever books are sold!

My most recent releases are Deep Fried Death, #12 in the Country Store Mysteries.

And Murder Uncorked, Cece Barton Mystery #1, which released in late October.

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We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.