Let the "pain" commence.

I have begun a bit of a challenge.

Whilst in Italy N and I really enjoyed having just a pastry and coffee for breakfast. So much so that N pondered about having it at home. Cue me to hunt out the recipe for pain au chocolate, or brioche con cioccolate as they call it in Italy. "How hard can it be?" I thought to myself.

Apparently quite hard. I looked at lots of blogs about croissants and every single one seemed to say what a nightmare they are to make; time consuming and fiddly. Hmm...perhaps I was a little too quick to suggest I have a go.

However, a friend recently surprised me by treating me to Bake by Rachel Allen. As I eagerly flicked through I noticed that the lovely ribbon bookmark was coincidentally marking the page for croissants. It was a sign, a baking omen, and fortunately her recipe looked manageable. So today, with N back at work (boo) and me all alone in the house again, forced to do work (because the cat just wants to run about in the falling leaves chasing his tail) I decided to venture into the experiment of intricate foldings of butter and dough.


So far I'm about three hours in. It seems to be going pretty well, but then all I've done is roll out some dough, place some butter in it and roll it out and fold it again. The real test will come when I actually bake them.

I shall keep you posted...