Plié au Chocolat – French Chocolate and Custard Pastries

I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of playing “Last Supper”; name the foods you would choose to eat for your last meal, if you knew it was going to be the last one you ever ate. Plié au Chocolat (literally Chocolate Folds) is one of my “last meal” foods. It is one of the most unassuming, humble looking pastries in the illustrious world of French pastry, but its appearance belies its perfection. The construction is simple: buttery puff pastry spread on one side with pastry cream (vanilla custard), miniature semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips sprinkled over the top, folded, and baked. That something so simple can be so transcendent is one of those miracles of food.

This is pretty much my husband’s favourite pastry ever, too. It’s everything he loves in one beautiful pastry package; custard, chocolate, and flaky butter pastry. I don’t think it  can get better than this. Sadly, I have only seen this pastry for sale in France itself or at Maison Kayser in New York City, so if you want to experience the otherworldly perfection that is Plié au Chocolat, you’ll need to make them yourself.

Mercifully, it’s pretty easy once you have your pastry cream and homemade pastry dough on hand, and thankfully, it’s the same pastry dough that we use in our Homemade Croissants, Ham and Cheese Croissants, and Pain au Chocolat. So if you’ve been industrious and made the dough for one of those other delights, this one is basically in your back pocket already. Can you think of anything better on Christmas morning than these?

Cook’s Notes:

• Pastry cream is purchasable, but I prefer to make it from scratch. You can use this excellent recipe to make it.
• Be sure your pastry cream is well and thoroughly chilled before attempting to make your plié au chocolat.
• It is significantly easier to control where your pastry cream goes if you put it into a piping bag or gallon sized zipper top bag with the corner cut off. This will allow you to precisely pipe the pastry cream over half of each rectangle. If you don’t have either of those at your disposal, you can absolutely spoon it over half, I just find that to be a little fussier.
• I’m a fiend for miniature chocolate chips on my plié au chocolat; bittersweet is my choice when I can find it. If you can’t find it, you can substitute mini semi-sweet chips or chop a bittersweet chocolate bar finely and use that in place of the chips. Any of those options will be delicious.
• Be sure to use a rimmed half sheet pan for baking because these will leak a bit as they bake. Don’t worry, they’re meant to do so. It’s only a problem if you have an unrimmed pan and it leaks onto your oven floor.
• I absolutely prefer to line my half sheet pans with silpats to keep my pastry from sticking, but parchment will also do.

Prep Tips {use these to make Plié au chocolat more easily}

• silicone baking mats
• half sheet pan
• french rolling pin (my all time favourite is this one)
• pastry bag
• bench knife or pizza cutter

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Look how easy Plié au chocolat are to make!

Plié au Chocolat - French Chocolate and Custard Pastries

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Rebecca Lindamood

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Ingredients

  

• 1 batch homemade puff pastry
• 3 cups chilled vanilla pastry cream in a piping bag or gallon sized ziploc bag
• 2 cups miniature chocolate chips
• 1 egg beaten with a pinch of salt

Optional:

• powdered sugar for dusting the finished pastries

Instructions

 

• Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap, cut in half, re-wrap half and return it to the refrigerator. Roll out the remaining half of the dough into a rectangle that is roughly 9-inches by 25-inches. Use a pizza cutter, bench knife, or sharp paring knife to trim the sides neatly to an 8-inch by 24-inch rectangle. Cut the dough in quarters lengthwise, then once crosswise, yielding 8 long rectangles.
• Pipe about 3 tablespoons of pastry cream onto half of each rectangle, leaving an empty 1/2-inch of border pastry. Sprinkle a well-rounded tablespoon of the miniature chocolate chips over the pastry cream. Fold the empty half of pastry up over the filled half. Gently press the pastry together at the end. Transfer to a parchment or silpat lined, rimmed baking sheet.
• A half sheet pan should comfortably fit 8 unbaked plie au chocolat. Lay a clean tea towel over the pan and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes, or until slightly puffy.
• Preheat the oven to 425F. Whisk together a large egg with a pinch of salt until even in colour. Brush the tops of the plie au chocolat with the egg wash. Bake for 23 to 30 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed, set, flaky, and caramelized to a deep rosewood brown. Let the pastries rest on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. These are always best when eaten slightly warm on the day they were made, but if there is some weird circumstance in which they're not all eaten immediately, I have loved them the day after they were made, too.

Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.

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Do you LOVE these Plié au chocolat? Try these baked goods!

• Homemade Croissants
• Pain au Chocolat {French Chocolatines}
• Ham and Cheese Croissants
• Hot Ham and Cheese Rolls
• Cinnamon English Muffin Bread
• One Hour Swedish Limpa
• Cheddar Jalapeno Bread
• Peanut Butter Banana Bread
• White Bread
• Death by Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Cinnamon Swirl Bread