Let's Eat

Today was the very anticipated potluck. The potluck for which I baked all weekend! Me and my friend made the chocolate croissants and the chocolate pudding cups.

And now for the self critique:
The croissants were fairly tasty. They weren't what I expected though. When I think about chocolate croissants I think about very soft and flaky dough. The ones we made were too hard and the dough was more stiff than flaky. I got the shape almost perfect though! I didn't know if they were gonna come out too big but after they were baked they looked pretty awesome. The people at the potluck liked them, and by the end of the morning there were only 3 out of 18 left. I took these home and I'll be having them for breakfast the next few days.


The chocolate pudding.... All I can say is YUUUM!!! It was soooooo good! It was sweet but not too sweet. It was soft but not too liquid. It looked like pudding, it tasted like pudding and it was as enjoyable as pudding! So so so good! The chocolate cups barely survived. They were melting way too fast so when we got there they were melting into each other. When we tried to separate them they broke a little bit but they were still eatable and presentable! We also added some sprinkles on top of the pudding for a little extra color! I absolutely recommend Bakerella's Chocolate Pudding Cup recipe. Just delicious.

Croissants au Chocolat

Chocolate croissants are my favorite kind of croissant, obviously, I mean, they have chocolate inside! and so because I've always liked them I researched some recipes to see if I could make them at home. It turns out that every single recipe I found was intimidating: they were long, wordy and each of the 13 to 15 steps were whole paragraphs of confusing explanations! Honestly I don't know how bakeries around the world make so many every day and they come out so yummy!

I tried to make them this weekend. It took me all weekend.

I discovered that there's a lot of waiting around during the process of making croissants because of the yeast and the gluten in the dough. I don't have much experience making bread dough but the waiting was exhausting! Meryl Streep made it look so easy on "It's Complicated."

The end result was... ok I guess. The dough was a little hard and not flaky like I was expecting it to be; the chocolate got burned inside although you can't really tell. I know I still have a lot to learn about bread dough and I will most certainly try again, maybe with a different recipe (I used Martha's so if you have a good one I can use please comment and send it!).

I also have a question for who ever can answer it: the recipe says that I have to spray the oven with water before and after putting the croissants in... anybody know why??