Wine pairing with chocolate croissants?

We found a decent dessert wine a while back... Deco Chocolate Port. it's available in a lot of wine shops and grocery stores..

Pretty much a schizophrenic wine... one moment you're tasting lucious port.. the next, a smooth and silky chocolate. It pairs with most any chocolate-related dessert or pastry.

You could also look for a Merlot or even a Pinot Noir, depending on style. Something fruity that accentuates the chocolate, but which isn't heavy and tannic. You want something that plays well off of the cocoa butter, and which doesn't fight for control one way or another.

I wouldn't order them online. The best come fresh out of the oven from your local bakery or deli. Even a day sitting out gives the butter and oils a chance to turn the fluffy/flaky crust soft and chewy.

Thanks,

David

Thanks for the great wine suggestions. I'll look into it. As far as the chocolate croissants go, I know there's nothing better than fresh out of the oven, however, ..., my 12 year old wants me to fly with her to Paris just for chocolate croissants. So, ordering the best online gives me a chance at having some fun with my daughter, within my budget.

Granted scones and croissants are not the same, but the best scones I ever had came from a little stand right by Stonehenge. I was leaving for home the next day, so I bought a bunch to take home for a few friends. They were still excellent.

Jose

the croissants in most local bakeries often leave much to be desired. There is one way I know how to get first class croissants anywhere in the US, but it is expensive. French born pastry chef Jean-Yves Charon makes proper classic croissants in the many layered puff paste manner by hand. He then freezes the raw croissants. They are shipped to you frozen by air. They will keep well frozen about 3 months. To use them you thaw and let rise several hours or overnight and then bake. Both plain and chocolate ones are available. Callebaut chocolate is used. The only web site I know that sells these is

. By the time you pay the shipping charges and tax, an order of 15 standard size or 24 mini size will cost you nearly US$50. If you visit a major US city you may be able to find proper classic croissants at one or two high end bakeries which often supply top restaurants. It requires a chef who has well mastered classic hand-made puff paste to make classic croissants, and it requires much time to do so.

You mean... those things I get at McDonalds aren't proper croissants? Sheesh.. all this time...!

Jose

I suspect a big, rich, perhaps LBV, port would be ideal. Personally, I'd suggest Heitz Ink Grade Port; at $25 for a 750ml, it's outstanding.

However, Graham's Six Grapes is probably at your local Costco for $16, another outstanding but easy-to-find (and really from Portugal) port.

Dana

IIRC the reason Charon's croissants succeed is that he imports flour from France. French flour used in commercial baking (farine fluide) is an extremely fine grind, and has a higher gluten content that US or UK flour. (In fact it is so fine that it is typically pumped into the bakery from the delivery truck.) As I know to my sorrow, US recipes don't work (unamended) with French flour. So, time and skill are not the only requisites, and it is usually impossible to find true French croissants in the US with perhaps the exception mentioned above.

It is also true that at about 6 hours out of the oven the croissant degrades. For this reason a good bakery will produce small batches several times per day -- I know baguettes are usually produced in 6 separate bakings -- which is a practice it is difficult to imagine being emulated in the US.

However it is possible to revive -- if not to the original quality -- a croissant by sticking it in a medium oven for about 5 minutes. Still I think the frozen option is about the only real bet to get a "true" croissant. Any abomination in a plastic bag and several days old will likely provoke daughter to a grave crisis of angst... :)

As for a wine to accompany pain au chocolat, well. Some people espouse chocolate with a big calcab or zin, but personally I think it's a really foul idea, right up there with the plastic bag croissant. (Apologies to my friends who like this sort of thing: different strokes!) I'd try a decent Banyuls, or Rasteau VDN rouge, or in a pinch that "orange muscat" from CA that I can't recall the name of. Actually none of that's true, I'd steer towards a nice glass of Vittel, or a coffee. I don't eat croissants after the morning.

-E

Pain au chocolat is only made in the morning, it is a breakfast thing, so the thought of pairing wines does not even come into my head - I would never have these in the evening or even for lunch, by then they would be stale. For this reason, ordering online makes absolutely no sense. I would suggest you make your own, with practice flaky pastry can be mastered at home, and this would also be the occasion to put some really good chocolate in them.

However, if I REALLY wanted to pair something at breakfast, I would make it a very light low alcohol pink sparkler like a Cerdon du Bugey, there are not that many good ones but go for one that is not too heavy on the sugar.

Ah, memories. I had those scones also, along with a cup of soup, which was also great. :*) No wine though was for sale there. sigh.

Well, I'm not so structured that I can't eat a chocolate croissant after my daughter gets home from school; the idea is to enjoy a little fun together. Of course the wine isn't for my daughter it would be for me and my adult friends that would get a kick out of a treat from Paris.

Funny thing is, after trying to work this out all weekend, without success, my first client Monday morning turned out to be someone from a town just north of Paris. I told her my goal and she said she would make it happen!

It was great listening to her pronounce pain au chocolate as a native speaker of French.