Indeed I did, Steph. HAHAHAHAHAH! Good catch!

Did you mean “freeze” before the final rise, not “bake”?! 😆

Hi Daina- I’m sorry you’re having difficulty with this one. I definitely made and make this recipe as written. In fact, I make it on a pretty regular basis. 🙂

I’m trying to figure out where you had dough in contact with waxed paper, because the only recommendation for using waxed paper is when you roll out the butter block. When baking, it should be (as indicated in the recipe card) on parchment or silicone baking sheets. Parchment paper is designed for baking, waxed paper is most definitely not.

Please weigh back in and let me know if this might explain the issues you had.

Hi Kat- You added the salt at just the right time. (I went in and fixed the printable. Thank you for that heads up!) Something else must have gone wrong. Let’s see if we can work through this for you, because I make this recipe on average of once a month and it works each time. As the recipe originates from King Arthur Flour’s baking experts, I’m also pretty confident that it’s accurate. When you measure your flour, do you measure by weight or by volume? And what was the room temp when you had the dough rising? Dough that’s made with milk often takes far longer to rise and hydrate well. If the room was cool (or your milk was fridge-temp going in) it may have taken a lot longer for the yeast to become active. If you are up to giving it another go, I wouldn’t turn it out of the bowl until it shows signs of activity and looks puffy.
As for the wordiness, it’s there for folks who have never tried baking croissants, and I stand by that as well. 🙂

It doesn’t say when to add the salt, so I guess I did it wrong. I added it with the sugar, yeast, milk, and flour, but this just never rose at all, so maybe that was the problem. I know my yeast was fine because I used it in a different recipe on the same day with no issue, so maybe the salt messed it up, but I had no way of knowing when to add it other than to guess. After that, I kept trying, but probably should have just tossed the dough and found a new recipe. I felt like I got lost each time I read a new step because of how long winded each step was. I’ve made croissants plenty of times, so I was able to rely on my experience when I’d get lost in the paragraph of writing which amounted to “fold the dough in fourths,” but I don’t ever remember a dough so tough. The end result reflected that toughness. They tasted fine, but the texture wasn’t right and since I must have screwed it up right at the start, it was a frustrating use of time. I guess I’ll have to keep looking.

It sounds like something went wrong in the process for you, Marc, as this should definitely not be chocolate bread. How fresh was your laminated dough? Did you make it from scratch or use purchased puff pastry? Did you use enough pastry cream?

I have to say these look amazing. I had made pain au chocolat two weeks ago with a different recipe and they were pretty close but not wow. Because of that I decided to keep looking and found this recipe.

Sorry to say but they did not turn out good. It was more like chocolate bread and not what should be a delicate pastry.

Back to the drawing board

Hi MomO4. I would go so far as to form the pain au chocolats (make the dough, roll it out, cut it, roll around the chocolate batons) and place them on parchment paper, then freeze until solid, and transfer to a freezer bag until the day before you’d like to bake them. After that, you’ll want to place on a parchment lined sheet pan and thaw in the refrigerator overnight before allowing the final rise and baking as described in the recipe!

In reply to Rebecca.

I would like to freeze this. Please, will you explain, at what temp would you bake that first time & for how long?