Pain aux Raisins (French Raisin Swirls)
Pain aux raisins is a French pastry made from laminated yeasted dough, the same one used for croissants, rolled around a filling of pastry cream and raisins.A staple of French bakeries, loved for being crisp, soft and sweet all at once.
Ingredients
Dough
- 255 g flour
- 30 g caster sugar
- 18 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 6 g salt
- 75 g water
- 10 g yeast
- 50 g whole milk, at room temperature
- 120 g unsalted butter
- 120 g raisins
Pastry cream
- 75 g whole milk
- Vanilla extract
- 13 g egg yolk
- 15 g sugar
- 5 g flour
- 5 g cornflour
- 8 g butter
Method
Dough
- Before adding the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl, activate the yeast in a little water for 10 minutes.
- Add the flour, sugar, salt, yeast, milk and water to the bowl.Speed 1 (out of 4) for 4 minutes.
- Add the butter to the dough gradually.
- Speed 2 for 1 minute.
- Cover with cling film and let the dough rest and rise for 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, prepare the butter block for laminating.Wrap the block of butter in baking paper and shape it into a rectangle of roughly 15cm x 20cm.
- Use a rolling pin to flatten the butter and push it into every corner of the rectangle.
- Put the butter in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- Take the dough out and knock it back. Work it a little so it no longer sticks to the worktop.Then roughly shape it into a rectangle of 30cm x 25cm.
- Cover and chill for 45 minutes.
- Take out the dough and the butter, lay the butter block on the dough and give it a double turn.
- Chill again for 30 minutes.
- Then give it a single turn.
- Cover again and chill for 45 minutes.
- (Make the pastry cream at this point.)
- Then roll the dough out to a thickness of about 5mm, measuring roughly 40cm x 25cm.
Pastry cream
- Heat the milk in a saucepan until it just simmers, with a touch of vanilla.
- In a bowl, whisk the egg yolk with the sugar until pale.
- Add the flour and the cornflour.
- Pour the milk into the mixture and stir.
- Transfer everything back to the pan over medium heat and stir until the cream reaches the right consistency.
- Cover with cling film touching the surface and chill.
- Remember to whisk the cream again before using it.
Shaping the log and the buns
- Trim the edges of the dough to get a neat rectangle.
- Spread the pastry cream over it.
- Scatter the raisins evenly.
- Roll the dough up starting from one of the two shorter sides.
- Cover and chill for 30 minutes.
- Cut into portions 2.5cm thick.
- Place the portions on baking paper on a baking tray.
- Let them prove for 20 minutes in the oven with a pan of hot water, or set the baking tray slightly raised above a pan of hot water, cover the tray with cling film and lay a clean tea towel on top.
- Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes.
