“Let’s eat Croissants and pretend we’re in Paris!”
Vegan Chocolate Croissant, all right!
And not from the bakery, not out of store bought dough nor the frozen aisle in your grocery store.
A – a, my friends, homemade through and through!
And what’s more important:
for these croissants you DON’T have to get up at 5am and start laminating and re-folding until you drop
or until 5pm when guests arive and all you did was fiddlin’ the croissant violin and not much else.
So you’ll have plenty of time to do other yummy stuff too!
Or just eat the croissants yourself and yourself alone,
which is pretty cool sometimes too.
And yes.
You’ll get your 27 folds of inner soft and delicate layers that crisp so seducitively on the outside, making every bite so joyfull: a crunch and the melt in a matter of seconds… and if you so wan’t to make it more sexy, add some chocolate for an extra serotonine kick!
VEGAN CHOCOLATE CROISSANTS
600 g flour (bread flour, but all purpose will work too)
1 tbsp/7g/1 sachet of instant yeast
350 ml plant milk
50 ml oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
250 g margarine or vegan butter for laminating
some milk for brushing
ca. 150 g dark chocolate
By the order they are enlisted (except margarine, chocolate and milk for brushing) put all ingredients into the mixing bowl and make a nice, pliable but not a sticky dough. You can do it by hand or by a hand mixer, but whatever you do, just don’t add more flour (unless it’s super duper sticky but then add a tbsp or two). The dough should be well put toghether, meaning having a smooth surface and not being lumpy.
Leave the dough covered for 10 minutes and prepare the butter, surface you’ll roll the dough on, some flour and a rolling pin.
Take the dough out. It shouldn’t be sticky so you won’t need to throw too much flour on the surface, just sprinkle some. Divide the dough in 12, or if you are feeling adventurous, into 18 pieces.
Roll each piece in rectangular shape by the size of your two palms placed next to eachother (fingers next to eachother too, not spread) but watch you don’t roll it too thin because it will break and butter will come out and make your life one sticky hell. Btw, if it does, pat some flour on the patch and/or pinch the dough to stick together and close it.
After you’ve rolled out one piece, spread some butter on it (or just grate some with a grater from above), roll another piece, put it over the first one and press gently with your hands. Keep doing that until you reach the last piece of dough and use all of the butter – roll that piece but don’t put butter on it, just put it on top of the stack and roll gently to press and even it all out and give it a nice shape around the edges.
Leave the dough covered with tea towel for another 10 minutes and line your largest baking sheet with baking paper.
Sprinkle the working surface with some flour – and keep that in mind during the whole folding process – it’s important to always have some flour under your dough so it kinds of slides a little and never sticks on the bottom because it will break and make you troubles.
Roll the dough out to ca. 20x30cm rectangle and then fold it from the far ends toward the center, like a letter. Then roll it out gently some more, to the same size you started from. Then fold the dough again and again, 4 folds should be enough, but you can always do more. The final dough rectangle should have the thickness of your little finger and be ca. 40×30 cm.
Using a knife or a pizza cutter cut the dough in 16 rectangles and put a piece of chocolate (ca. size of your finger), roll the pastry gently and put it on the baking sheet. Brush with some milk, cover with tea towel and put it somewhere out of everyone’s way (I put it in the oven, but don’t turn it on yet!) for a nice 2 – 3 hours or until they double in size. Then take them out and brush with some milk agan.
Turn the oven on 180°C and bake the croissants for a nice 20 mins or till they are all nice, golden and crispy. Take them out, cool and then eat – don’t eat them piping hot! My Grannie was very serious about hot yeast dough causing so much belly pain – but we won’t tell her – I don’t listen that advice always…
This recipe is adapted from Zahra Couisina YT video.
