Soy Free Pain au Chocolat
Few things in the pastry world rival the moment you pull apart a perfectly laminated chocolate pastry and watch those shatteringly crisp, buttery layers give way to melted dark chocolate inside. This recipe is built entirely from scratch using real butter, whole milk, flour, and dark chocolate — nothing more, nothing less — which means you can feel completely confident about what's going into every single flaky fold. For anyone navigating soy sensitivities, store-bought versions and bakery cases can be a minefield of hidden soy lecithin lurking in the chocolate or the dough itself, but here every ingredient is straightforward and easy to verify. The lamination process — folding cold butter into chilled dough across three careful turns — is what creates those dramatic, honeycomb-like layers that puff and separate in the oven. Yes, it takes patience and a few rounds of refrigeration, but none of the steps are technically difficult, just deliberate. The payoff is a deep amber, glossy pastry with a crisp exterior, a tender interior, and two pockets of dark chocolate that stay perfectly gooey even as the pastry cools. Serve them warm from the rack and watch them disappear before you've even had a chance to make coffee.
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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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