Pain au chocolat – bicolor

Along with croissant, pain au chocolat and pain au raisin definitely are the other two favorite viennoiserie. Today I will do pain au chocolat – bicolor, if someone love the slightly bitten flavor of cacao powder together with the sweetness of dark chocolate filling inside, the flavorful butter…this pain au chocolat bicolor is a great choice!

Step 1   Croissant dough preparation 

• All purpose flour  500 gr.
• Salt 10 gr.
• Dry yeast  4 gr.
• Sugar  60 gr.
• Butter  50 gr.
• Water  160 ml.
• Milk  100 ml.
• Dry butter (low water content) for turns or folds  250 gr  (or pure butter)
• Dusting flour  50 gr.

By original recipe we can mix two types of flours (50/50) – all purpose (T55) and cake flour (T45), I couldn’t find T45 in our market, we have cake four but not same as T45 in France, so I use only all purpose and it’s ok! First to knead all together , except the butter for lamination, for around 4-5 minutes, until we have a well-combined dough. Cover it with film and keep in the fridge. For more details how to make the croissant dough, check the link here!

Step 2  Cacao mixture and cacao dough 

• 50 gr cacao powder
• 50 ml milk
• 130 gr croissant dough (before laminating)

Mix the cacao powder with cold milk then knead together with croissant dough (before we do folds) it would take 2-3 minutes to get evenly dark brown dough, keep it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Sometimes the dough will resist to get any longer, stop rolling and pressing the dough, it will only hurt layers, whenever the rolling of the dough gets harder just cover the dough and let the gluten relax for 20-30 minutes in the fridge before continuing.

Whenever the dough is soft and difficult to handle, just keep it in the fridge for at least 20-30 minutes, even for making some cuts-stripes like in the photo, the dough should be cold enough, it makes our cut sharp. Before rolling we put 1 chocolat bar inside, roll it and put the second one, continue to roll (it’s a very small choco bar, I don’t have choco bars so I replace it with chocolate chips). The dark brown should be outside. Now time for the final proof – at least two hours at the room temperature (25-27º), then bake at 180ºC for 30 minutes.