The Great Blogger Bake Off Episode Seven: Pastries

If everyone else's bad week was European cakes week, mine was definitely pastry week. Pastry is so hard to do, with all the folding and whatnot. Anyway, this week I decided to make my absolute favourite pastry: Pain Au Chocolat.

You will need:

500g strong bread flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 easy bake yeast sachet

75g golden caster sugar

270ml water

300g butter

200g plain chocolate

1. Mix together the sugar, flour, water, yeast and salt to make a firm dough. Knead for 10 minutes.

2. Warm the butter for about 10 seconds so it is soft enough to press down into a rectangle.

3. Roll out the dough into a rectangle about three times the size of the butter one. Place the butter on top of the dough so it covers two-thirds of it.

4. Fold the third of the dough with no butter on over, then the third on the other side over that, almost like a letter. Roll it out so the layers press together. Cover in cling film and put in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

5. After the 15 minutes, take the dough out, roll it and then fold into thirds again, roll the layers flat and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

6. Repeat this two more times, and then chill overnight (or just a few hours)

7. Roll out the dough into a big rectangle, and cut into slices. place a row of chocolate in each slice and then roll the slice around it (like a swiss roll). Cover and leave to prove for an hour.

8. Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 7/220C. Place the pain au chocolat onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 20 minutes.

9. Enjoy your French goodies.

If you want to join in the great blogger bake off, you can always use the hashtag #thegreatbloggerbakeoff. I hope next week's theme is a bit kinder.

Recipe from Baking Mad. 

Nic

xx