Chocolate Croissant Tearer Sharer
This is one of those recipes we genuinely get excited to bring out at the weekend. Imagine pulling apart warm, flaky puff pastry packed with rich, melted chocolate; it's the kind of thing that disappears off the table before you've even sat down. We love it because it looks seriously impressive but it's actually pretty straightforward to pull together. The chocolate filling is glossy and indulgent, the pastry goes golden and crisp on the outside, and that tearer sharer format just makes the whole thing feel like a proper occasion. Honestly, if you're looking for something to make tonight that'll have everyone reaching across the table, this is it.
Before You Start
- Preheat oven to 200°C
- Large baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- Heatproof bowl
- Saucepan (for melting chocolate over water bath)
Ingredients
- 2 ½ tbsp icing sugar - plus extra for dusting
- 2 tbsp plant-based milk
- 2 sheets of plant-based puff pastry
- 100g dark chocolate
- handful of strawberries
- handful of blueberries
- handful of raspberries
- oat cream or soy cream
Method
Melt the chocolate
- Put the heatproof bowl on top of the saucepan, making sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the water, and reduce the heat to low
- Break 75g of the chocolate into the bowl and stir occasionally with a wooden spoon until the chocolate has melted
- Pour in the icing sugar, stir to mix it in completely without any lumps and take the pan off the heat
Prepare the pastry
- Lay 1 sheet of puff pastry on to the lined baking sheet
- Pour most of the melted chocolate on to the centre of the pastry and spread it out, leaving a 2cm gap around the edges
- Lay the second sheet of pastry flush on top (you may want to ask a friend for help)
- Gently press the 2 sheets of pastry together all the way round the edges
Portion the croissants
- With a sharp knife, make 5 evenly spaced cuts into the long edges of the pastry so that they reach about 5cm in from the edges
- You should be left with a strip of pastry running down the middle of the sheets that is at least 3cm wide, with 5 flaps of pastry either side
Finish the croissants and bake
- Cut the remaining chocolate into 10 chunks and place 1 chunk in the middle of each flap of pastry
- Roll the flaps over the chocolate chunks, taking care not to cover the middle section, and press them to seal in the chocolate
- Brush all over the top with the plant-based milk
- Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 30–35 minutes, until the pastry is golden and slightly crispy
Decorate and serve
- Take the baking sheet out of the oven and scatter the fresh berries along the middle section
- Drizzle over the remaining melted chocolate
- Dust lightly with icing sugar and serve immediately with a little oat or soy cream on the side for people to pour over if they wish
Tips & Variations
- Score it properly: Before baking, make sure your cuts go almost all the way through the pastry so pulling it apart later is easy and satisfying rather than a tug of war.
- Go dark: We love using a really good quality dark chocolate here. The deeper the cocoa flavour, the more indulgent the whole thing tastes. At least 70% if you can.
- Serve warm: This is at its absolute best straight out of the oven when the chocolate is still a little gooey inside. If you need to reheat it, give it 5 minutes in a warm oven rather than the microwave to keep the pastry crisp.
Why This Works
The trick here is melting the chocolate slowly over a bain-marie so it stays silky and smooth; rushing it in the microwave can make it seize up and go grainy, which nobody wants. Stirring in the icing sugar while the chocolate is still warm means it blends in without any lumps and gives the filling that gorgeous fudgy texture. We find that keeping the water off the boil and being patient for those few minutes makes all the difference to the final result.