Walnut Free Pain au Chocolat
Few things in the pastry world rival the moment you pull apart a perfectly laminated chocolate pastry and watch those flaky, buttery layers separate to reveal a molten ribbon of dark chocolate inside. This recipe builds that magic from scratch using a classic lamination technique — folding cold butter into chilled dough across three careful turns to create the signature honeycomb of layers that shatters when you bite in. The filling is beautifully simple: dark chocolate batons tucked and rolled into each rectangle, no nuts, no fillers, just pure chocolate in every bite. For anyone navigating tree nut concerns, store-bought versions can be a minefield of shared equipment and ambiguous labeling, so making these at home puts you fully in control of every ingredient. The dough itself comes together with pantry staples — flour, yeast, sugar, salt, cold milk, and butter — and the only real requirement is patience with the chilling steps, which are what give you those dramatic, shatteringly crisp layers. A final egg wash baked at high heat delivers that deep amber gloss that makes these look like they came straight from a Parisian boulangerie window. They are genuinely worth every fold.
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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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