3-Ingredient Mini Pain Au Chocolat

Flakey and buttery croissants with little chunks of chocolate are incredibly quick and easy with frozen puff pastry. You just need 3 ingredients!

These breakfast treats are best warm from the oven, but can be assembled the night before, and baked off the next morning.

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• 🤷‍♀️ Are Chocolate Croissants and Pain au Chocolate the Same?
• 🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
• 🔪 Recommended Equipment
• 👩‍🍳 How to Work With Frozen Puff Pastry
• 💡Ideas for Possible Variations
• Mini Pain au Chocolat

Pain au Chocolat, also known as chocolate croissant, is my husband's favorite pastry. And it turns out, they're amazingly easy to make at home.

All you need is frozen puff pastry, chocolate squares, and egg white (to help the puff pastry adhere to itself). These come together very quickly and easily once the puff pastry thaws, and are great with your morning coffee or a cup of this ginger lemon honey tea.

🤷‍♀️ Are Chocolate Croissants and Pain au Chocolate the Same?

Yes and no.

They use the same laminated dough, but they're cut into different shapes and are rolled differently.

Specifically, chocolate croissants start with a triangle, and are rolled up into a rounded shape that's puffy in the middle and compressed at the ends. Pain au chocolate, on the other hand, is cut into rectangles, folded over small rectangles of chocolate, and then rolled up like a jelly roll.

So they're the same idea, but slightly different.

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👩‍🍳 How to Work With Frozen Puff Pastry

Two Major Brands

The two major brands of frozen puff pastry are Dufour, which uses butter, and Pepperidge Farm, which uses palm, soybean, and hydrogenated cottonseed vegetable oils.

Dufour recently introduced a plant-based frozen puff pastry. It uses four all natural ingredients: organic wheat flour, organic palm fruit oil, water, and sea salt. It's free from trans fats, artificial colors & flavors, sugar - including high fructose corn syrup.

They both work fine, but I prefer Dufour.

Step 1: Thaw and roll out

Thaw the pastry sheets either in the refrigerator overnight, or on the counter until you can unfold the sheets without cracking them. The pastry should be cold to the touch.

Carefully unfold the sheets on a work space. You should not need to flour the workspace first. If the pastry comes apart a little at the folds, just gently press it together using your fingers.

Smooth out the pastry using a rolling pin, but don't press down too hard.

Pro tip: It's possible to roll out the dough to a larger sheet, but this can keep it from rising as much in the oven.

If the dough becomes too soft, slide it into the refrigerator on a sheet of parchment paper or wax paper. Cover, and chill for at least 15 minutes.

Step # 2: Shape the pastry

You can use the entire sheet for a tart, or cut it into smaller pieces, such as for this Pain au Chocolat recipe or small galettes like these Caramelized Onion and Feta appetizers.

If you use the whole sheet for a tart, make a raised border by slicing off one inch strips from each side, and stacking the strips around the tart like a frame. This easy process is shown in pictures in this Onion Tart recipe.

Step # 3: Bake

For any recipe requiring the puff pastry to be baked first, such as with a tart, prick the pastry base several times with a fork to keep the base from puffing too much while it bakes, and bake according to the package or recipe directions.

💡Ideas for Possible Variations

• Use milk chocolate or dark chocolate.
• Eliminate the jam.

And now lets made this Petit Pain au Chocolat recipe!!