Spice Free Pain au Chocolat
Few baked goods hit quite like a freshly pulled pain au chocolat — shatteringly crisp on the outside, pillowy and buttery within, with pockets of melted dark chocolate tucked into every layer. The ingredient list here is beautifully clean: flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt, yeast, eggs, and chocolate. No spice blends, no seasoning mixes, no hidden flavor additives to second-guess. That makes this an ideal project for anyone who needs to keep their food completely free of spices and still wants something genuinely impressive on the table. The technique is the star. Laminating the dough — folding cold butter through chilled pastry in three careful turns — is what creates those dramatic, flaky layers without relying on anything beyond pantry staples. It takes patience and a few rounds of refrigeration, but none of the steps are complicated once you understand the rhythm. The payoff is a pastry that looks and tastes like it came straight from a French boulangerie, made entirely with ingredients you controlled from start to finish. Serve them warm from the rack and watch them disappear.
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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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