BHA & BHT Free Pain au Chocolat
Flaky, buttery, and hiding a molten ribbon of dark chocolate at the center, this classic French pastry is one of those bakes that feels genuinely impressive the moment it comes out of the oven. What makes this version particularly reassuring is how clean the ingredient list is — just flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt, yeast, eggs, and dark chocolate batons, with no synthetic preservatives hiding anywhere in the mix. For anyone navigating BHA and BHT concerns, store-bought croissants and pastries are notoriously tricky territory, since those additives often appear in commercial doughs and packaged chocolates without much fanfare on the label. Here, you control every component from the laminated dough to the chocolate tucked inside. The lamination process — three careful turns of folding cold butter into chilled dough — is what creates those shatteringly crisp, tissue-thin layers that pull apart so satisfyingly. It takes patience and a few rounds of refrigeration, but none of the steps are technically difficult, just methodical. The payoff is a tray of deeply golden pastries that taste like a Parisian bakery window, made entirely on your own terms.
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Learn more →Ingredients
8 servings
For the dough
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 3 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tsp fine salt
- ¾ cup whole milk, cold
- ¼ cup water, cold
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
For the butter block
- 1 cup (2 sticks / 225g) unsalted butter, cold
For the filling
- 16 dark chocolate batons (or 4 oz dark chocolate, cut into 16 short sticks)
For the egg wash
- 1 large egg
- 1 tbsp whole milk
Instructions
- 1
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the flour, instant yeast, sugar, and salt. Add the cold milk and cold water, then mix on low speed until a shaggy dough forms, about 2 minutes. Add the 2 tbsp softened butter and increase to medium speed, mixing until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes. The dough should be slightly tacky but not sticky.
- 2
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, shape it into a flat rectangle roughly 6×8 inches, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.
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