Who wouldn’t? It’s absolutely delicious, no question about it. The cheeses are magnificent. The bread is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The butter is sweet and creamy on your tongue. The pastries are awesome.
One day, we ate petit dejeuner (in the US of A, we call that continental breakfast) at a café near our hotel. Our breakfast consisted of café au lait, orange juice, and a yummy croissant. Following breakfast, we began looking at the sights of the beautiful city on foot. We seriously were a half block away, and my husband’s nose began to twitch. He smelled chocolate.
Sure enough, we came across a patisserie that had pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) fresh out of the oven. He requested one (despite the fact that we had eaten breakfast only minutes before). They carefully placed the croissant in a pretty bag and playfully twirled the corners of the bag, making a beautiful package, which my husband, of course, ripped open immediately upon leaving the shop. He doesn’t appreciate artistry when it is between him and chocolate.
To this day, he still talks about taking that first bite of the croissant, so fresh that it poofed in his mouth and crumbs fell on his shirt. His mouth filled with buttery bread and rich chocolate.
Well, I can’t compete, of course, and don’t even try. Have you ever seen a recipe for croissants? Maybe some day when I have lots of time and little to do. Not today or tomorrow, I’m afraid.
But once in a while I get a hankering for a pastry. Thankfully, I came across a recipe by, believe it or not, Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa) for easy Danish pastries. I say “believe it or not” because I think the Contessa rarely offers easy recipes, despite her constant pronouncement of “how easy was that?” I always yell back to the television, “Not that damn easy, Ina!”
Her recipe calls for frozen puff pastry, possibly the best invention of all time (well, the printing press might be better, but printed word is becoming old school technology, and puff pastry never will!). You simply thaw out the pastry (which you
can do in about 20 minutes), roll it to a 10 by 10 square, cut the square in quarters, and plop on a scoop of pie filling (I like blueberry). Her recipe is for cheese Danish, which is more complicated. I like the sweetness of fruit fillings. You then fold the pastry over the fruit filling and seal, using beaten egg as your glue. Bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Come to think of it, adding cheese to the blueberry filling would make it twice as good.
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