Location: My Tiny Kitchen

This is my version of Pain Au Chocolat. Traditionally, Pain Au Chocolat is a buttery croissant filled with gooey chocolate. Since it takes about 8 hours to make a crossiant, this is my simplified version which uses baguette to sandwich a generous amount of shaved chocolate. I usually make this on weekend mornings. Next to my porcini mushroom scrambled eggs, this is the sweet version of my perfect breakfast.

Take a loaf of baguette and cut it into 1/2 inch slices. Because this is a sweet sandwich, I usually make one sandwich per person.

Spread a generous amount of butter on both sides of the baguette.

I generally use Lindt’s chocolate when I bake. I like that it has a good quality for a reasonable price.

In this recipe, use an equal amount of dark and semi-sweet chocolate. Using both dark and semi-sweet chocolate gives the sandwich a good balance of sweet and bitter.

For each sandwich, you need 1 square of dark and 1 square of semi-sweet chocolate.
Using a chef knife, “shave” the chocolate into thin stripes.

Place a generous amount of chocolate on one side of the buttered baguette.

Heat a non stick pan until it is warm.
Place the sandwiches into the pan.
Reduce to medium heat, toast the bread for 1 minute.
Turn to the other side, and toast for another minute.

After the sandwich is plated, wait for them to cool down a little, then sprinkle them with icing sugar.

You can see how the chocolate is oozing out of the sandwich. The bread is crunchy and the chocolate is silky smooth; it has a very interesting texture contrast. The butter not only binds everything together, it gives the sandwich a very buttery taste.