Pain au chocolat

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo to share this time. But I swear I'll upload one as soon as I make this again. Essentially, this is very similar to my pain au raisins recipe, but I'm uploading this separately due to popular requests.

Ingredients

• 160g + 30g plain flour
• 170 bread flour
• 45g + 100g caster sugar
• 2g salt
• 4 whole eggs + 4 egg yolks
• 60g water (more accurate than 120ml, as 1ml=1g of water)
• 14g instant dry yeast (about 2 sachets)
• 150g unsalted  butter (important!!! room temperature and very soft)
• 300ml milk (full fat or semi-skimmed)
• 100g dark chocolate
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine 160g plain flour, 170g bread flour and 45g caster sugar together and mix 
2. Add salt to one side of the dry ingredients and yeast to the other side of the flour. Do not mix them, as it will kill the yeast
3. Make a well in the middle of the mixing bowl, add water and 3 whole eggs into the mix and mix with dough hook on your mixer for 2-3 minutes on low speed until ingredients have combined
4. Cut butter into 10-15 small cubes and add 1 cube at a time to the mix. Continue the mixer on low-medium speed
5. Once all the butter has been incorporated, keep mixer on medium for another 15 minutes, the dough should become sticky and shiny
6. Turn mixer speed up to medium high for another 2 minutes. You should hear the dough slapping against the side of the mixer at this stage. If the dough looks loose and wet, add 1 tbsp of plain flour and beat for another two minutes
7. Seal mixing bowl with cling film and let it rise either at room temperature for 2-3 hours or in the fridge overnight. The dough should double to triple in size 
8. Whilst the dough is rising, make the pastry cream (creme patissiere). Beat the egg yolks, 100g sugar together really well
9. Add plain flour and mix again until it thickens
10. Heat milk to simmering point and pour into the egg yolk mix, whisking continuously!!! 
11. Pour all the contents back into the saucepan and keep it on medium heat and whisk continuously until it thickens (it's NOT going to go REALLY thick)
12. Add vanilla extract to that pastry cream once it is thick 
13. Let it cool to room temperature (will take about an hour)
14. Place a layer of cling film on table surface and lightly dust with plain flour
15. Roll out the dough to a rectangle on cling film (approximately 50cm x 25cm)
16. Spread the pastry cream evenly on the dough
17. Break up the chocolate and sprinkle evenly over the dough and pastry cream
18. Use the cling film to help roll up the dough, so the pastry cream and chocolate are inside
19. Tuck in the sides, so the pastry cream and chocolate are not going to spill out
20. Place a piece of baking paper on baking tray and layer your bread on it
21. Seal the baking tray with cling film and let it rise again for another 90 minutes and it should increase in volume again
22. After about 60-70 minutes of rising, pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C (170 fan) and place a small tray of water on the bottom of the oven (about 300ml), to reduce the bread from forming a hard crust surface as it bakes 
23. Remove cling film and beat 1 whole egg and brush egg wash on the dough
24. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, but water carefully, depending on your oven, it may take as little as 25 minutes
25. Take out of the oven and let it cool for a couple of hours and slice into 10-12 pieces to serve 

Double chocolate and strawberry cheesecake

This is NOT a baked cheesecake, but it is vegetarian (but NOT vegan) friendly. Low fat cream cheese  and cream may be used to substitute the full fat if you want (honestly, I can't tell the difference between full and low fat when it's chocolate flavoured). 

Ingredients

• 150g digestive biscuits
• 60g butter melted
• 2x200g cream cheese 
• 100g icing sugar
• 100g dark chocolate (50-70%)
• 100g white chocolate
• 280ml double cream 
• 250g strawberries

1. Crush biscuits and stir in the melted butter
2. Press biscuit firmly into the bottom of a 20cm round baking tin (preferably spring form, so you can take it out easier)
3. Melt dark chocolate in microwave (careful with power setting as it will burn if heated at high power) and leave it to cool
4. Meanwhile, beat the double cream until it forms stiff peaks
5. Beat icing sugar into 200g cream cheese 
6. Mix in dark chocolate and half of the whisked cream
7. Layer the cheesecake filling on top of the biscuits and chill for 30-60 minutes in the fridge
8. Wash, drain and slice strawberries in halves and layer on the dark chocolate cheese filling
9. Melt white chocolate in microwave (again, be careful with microwave power setting) and let it cool for 5 minutes
10. Mix in white chocolate and the remaining cream into 200g of cream cheese and put it on the dark chocolate layer and chill for at least an hour before serving