Pain au Chocolat Fingers

We were sent a Gluten Free magazine ... not something I usually spend £5 on as, to be honest, find the content is mostly lifted from blogs and rarely do the pictures reflect the actual recipes baked.  A case in point is the 'photo' chosen to accompany the Pain au Chocolat recipe we spotted and decided to have a bash at baking... the photo on the facing page looks very much like a 'stock' image of glutenous pains au chocolat... a giveaway is the fact that the method of rolling the pains is NOT that advocated in the recipe!

Anyway, enough of the background and our rambling thoughts... time to tell you how we made the 'enriched dough' Pains au Chocolat Fingers (our name for them, having made them).

Ingredients needed were already in the cupboards here.

175g bread flour (we used Dove's farm gluten free which includes xantham gum - of yours doesn't you'll need ¼tsp xantham gum)
2¼tsp fast action dried yeast
50g caster sugar
2tsp baking powder (we used Dr Oetker gluten free)
50ml olive oil
50ml warm water (you may need more)
1 medium egg
1tsp vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate chips (we didn't use them all in the end)

To glaze - one egg yolk, 1 Tbsp milk.

The oil, water, egg and vanilla were mixed in bowl.

Next the dry ingredients were added, a spoonful at a time, and dough hooks were used with the hand mixer to incorporate
throughout the dough. 


After 5 minutes of mixing, the dough was starting to come away from the sides of the bowl.

Placing the dough on a very well floured silicone sheet, it was lightly worked to form a long rectangle before being cut into 10 pieces.

Each piece of dough was then rolled lightly (again using a lot of flour) into a rectangle of about 15x10cm.  The edges were then brushed with the egg/flour mix and chocolate chips were placed in a line along each of the short edges.

Rolling the dough up from short edge to middle, from each side, the shape became more like a finger.

Next, the rolled up buns were put on a non-stick baking sheet, and  covered with an oiled piece of cling film before being put in the airing cupboard for 45-50 minutes.

Once they'd risen a little, the buns were brushed with the remaining egg/milk mix and baked in a pre-heated oven (170ºC fan) for 10 minutes when they were checked (this will vary depending on size).  They were removed from the oven when they were a golden brown.

Some were eaten fresh, the remainder heated for breakfast the next day using the toaster's warming rack.  They freeze well and can be reheated using the toaster from frozen.

Genius Breakfast Pastries

Last week, after a particularly wearing hospital appointment, we took Sous Chef J to a Tesco Extra as a treat (yes, really!)  It was late morning and, luckily, the shop was quite empty.  J busied himself with "perusing the bakugan and pokemon offerings" (which B was left to supervise) and I dashed off for a speed shop.  Having located the, frankly very reduced in number, free from shelves I spotted the Genius Gluten Free breakfast items I'd been reading about... and, even better, they were on offer.  So, I bought the pain au chocolat 2 packs to try.

What was really amazing was that when we got home, we found we'd won a twitter competition and were being sent some croissants from the Genius range. What luck.... more on them later.

Saturday morning came and Sous Chef J was keen to taste test the pain au chocolats.  We were rather naughty and decided to ignore the cooking instructions on the pack.  Instead, we used the bun warming rack on our toaster.  We had the heat setting on 4 and did each side once.  This was enough to melt the chocolate hidden within the crispy pastry.  We all loved them and couldn't wait for our twitter treat to be delivered so we could sample the croissants too.

Happily, we didn't have to wait long and on Monday we opened a package that contained a 2 pack of croissants, some recipe cards and a Genius wooden spoon.  We had an early start ahead of us the next day so decided that the croissants would be a great way to keep us going.

Once again, when it came to preparing the croissants, we ignored the 'cook in a preheated oven' instructions (sorry, Genius) and used our pastry rack on the toaster. 

Once heated through, we sliced into the croissants to check the look of the pastry and were very pleasantly surprised.  The croissants looked just like gluten-containing ones!  So, we buttered, jammed and ate.

Having only had one pack of croissants to eat, and given Sous Chef J is a "growing lad", we supplemented our breakfast eats with some toasted fruit loaf.  Sous Chef J also added some nectarines to make it a fruity fruit loaf feast.

We are delighted to have found a lovely selection of gluten free breakfast items.  Although, as in our gluten eating days, they won't be daily breakfast items and we will be saving them for high days and holidays.