Welcome back to Week 3 of my Bake Off 2022 Bake Along! Week 3 is notoriously famous for being bread week, and happens to be my favourite week as I love baking bread! Following the amazing Technical from last year, Ciabatta bread sticks (see recipe here), I was looking forward to a delicious bread-based savoury bake this week! But for some reason, Paul decided that it was going to be Pain au Raisins for the Technical. These pastry spirals filled with crème pâtissière and raisins may be technically challenging to make, but in my opinion they are not bread and belong in pastry week/French week. Despite this disappointment, I am sticking to my guns to make all the technicals this year, so here’s my attempt at Paul’s Pain au Raisins!
Check out the video here:
A few elements to get right to master Paul’s Pain au Raisins
There are a few elements to Paul’s Pain au Raisings making it a good technical challenge per se, just not for bread week in my opinion. He justified his choice by saying that they were made with an enriched yeast-leavened dough… but still. I disagree XD!
For this recipe you will need to make an enriched dough, a dough that has “enriching” ingredients in it such as egg, butter, sugar, and milk. Then, butter is folded into the dough to create several layers (lamination) which will make the dough/pastry puff up in the oven while baking. I have a similar German recipe on my blog which used this technique and is then filled with cinnamon butter. Definitely worth a go, so check out the recipe for the Franzbrötchen here.
You’ll also have to make a crème pâtissière for this recipe, which can be tricky but is perfectly achievable if you make sure to whisk the mixture well while pouring the warm milk into the eggs and then thickening it. Check out the video above or many of my other videos on YouTube where I have explained how to do this.
More Bake Off Technical Challenge Recipes
I’ve made so many already, yet I’m still so far away! Loads more Bake Off Technicals on my blog, check out the list below to look at some of the other recipes to try yourself!
- Mary Berry’s Religieuses
- Mary Berry’s Fraisier Cake
- Paul Hollywood’s Hand-raised Chicken, Bacon and Apricot Pies
- Mary Berry’s Bakewell Tart with feathered Icing
- Paul’s Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cakes
- Mary Berry’s Frosted Walnut Layer Cake
- Paul Hollywood’s Cottage Loaf
- Mary Berry’s Homemade Jaffa Cakes
- Paul Hollywood’s Wagon Wheel Biscuits
- Mary Berry’s Victoria Sponge Cake
- Paul Hollywood’s Mini Pork Pies
- Mary Berry’s Viennese Whirls
- Prue’s Vegan Chocolate and Raspberry Tarts (S2UC Special)
- Pizza Star Bread (Junior Bake Off)
- Mary Berry’s Coffee and Walnut Battenberg Cake
- Paul’s Crusty White Cob
- Paul Hollywood’s Rainbow Bagels
- Prue Leith’s Malt Loaf
- Paul’s Jammy Biscuits
- Paul Hollywood’s Olive Ciabatta Bread Sticks with Homemade Tzatziki
- Prue Leith’s Sticky Toffee Puddings with Sesame Tuiles
- Prue Leith’s Prinzregententorte
- Paul Hollywood’s Baklava (22cm)
- Paul’s Caramel Biscuit Bars (Twix)
- Prue Leith’s Vegan Sausage Rolls
- Prue’s Sablé Breton Cake
- Paul Hollywood’s Sticky Belgian Buns
- Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing
- Prue’s Garibaldi Biscuits with Feathered Chocolate Icing
- Paul Hollywood’s Pain au Raisins
- Paul’s Spicy Beef Tacos
- Paul Hollywood’s S’mores
- Prue Leith’s Pistachio Praline Ice Cream Cones
- Vegetable Spring Rolls
- Prue’s Vertical Chocolate, Hazelnut, and Raspberry Tarts
- Paul Hollywood’s Devonshire Splits
Paul’s Pain au Raisins | Bake Off Technical Challenge
Recipe
Ingredients (makes 12):
FOR THE PASTRY DOUGH:
- 350g strong white bread flour
- 250g cold unsalted butter, divided into 25g (cut into cubes) and 225g (leaves as a block)
- 30g golden caster sugar
- 7g fast-action dried yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 125ml full-fat milk
- 50ml warm water
- 1 large egg for the dough
- 1 beaten egg to glaze
FOR THE CRÈME PATISSIERE:
- 50g caster sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 20g cornflour
- 250ml full-fat milk
- Seeds from ½ vanilla pod OR ½ tsp vanilla bean paste
FOR THE FILLING:
- 100g raisins
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 orange, zest only
FOR THE ICING:
- 100g icing sugar
- 2-3 tsp orange juice (use the orange from the filling)
Method:
- Start by making the dough. Put the flour in a mixing bowl and cut the 25g portion of the butter into cube. Add these to the flour and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Then add the caster sugar, yeast and salt (add these to opposite sides of the bowl) and briefly mix in until combined.
- In a measuring jug, beat together the milk, warm water and egg before pouring into the flour mixture. Use a knife or wooden spoon to bring the mixture together, then turn out onto the work surface and knead it for 5 minutes. The dough is meant to still be slightly sticky, so you may have to use a dough scraper to help with the kneading. Once smooth, wrap the dough in some clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Place the remaining 225g block of butter between 2 sheets of baking paper. Flatten and roll it out using a rolling pin to make a rectangle measuring 33x19cm. But the butter slab back into the fridge to firm up.
- Make the crème pâtissière while you are waiting for the dough. In a heatproof bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, caster sugar, cornflour and 1 tbsp of the milk until smooth and slightly paler in colour. Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan, stir in the vanilla, then gently heat until just below boiling point.
- Carefully pour the hot milk into the egg mixture in a slow but steady stream, mixing continuously to stop the egg from curdling. Return the mixture back to the pot set over a low heat and warm, whisking continuously, until the crème pâtissière is thick. Remove from the heat and pour into a shallow bowl, then cover the surface with clingfilm. Leave the crème pâtissière to cool slightly at room temperature, then transfer to the fridge to cool completely and firm up.
- Once the dough has had an hour in the fridge, roll it out on a lightly floured work surface into a 50x20cm rectangle and about 1cm thick. With a short end of the dough closest to you, place the chilled slab of butter onto the dough so that it covers the bottom two thirds.
- Fold the top third of the dough (without the butter) down to cover half of the butter, then fold the bottom third of the dough (with butter) up over the dough (see my video for a visual). Pinch together the edges to seal in the butter, then wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- With the seam facing the left, again roll out the dough until about 1cm thick and 50x20cm wide so that a short end faces you. Fold over the bottom third of the dough, brush off any excess flour, then fold the top third down. Wrap the dough in clingfilm again and chill for a further 20 minutes.
- For a third time, roll the dough into a 50x20cm rectangle and fold the bottom third up, then the top third dough. Then roll the pastry into a large square measuring 30x30cm.
- Give the chilled crème pâtissière a mix, then evenly spread it over the dough leaving a 2xm border around the sides. Next, sprinkle over the raisins, cinnamon, and orange zest.
- Starting from the edge furthest away from you, roll the dough towards you to create a spiral sausage. Keep the roll as tight as possible, and when you reach the end, scrape away any leaked filling and roll the sausage back and forth a bit to seal the join.
- Cut the roll into 12 equal slices to make the pain au raisins. Put the pain au raisins cut-side up on two trays lined with baking paper, leaving some space between them to allow for them to rise. Cover with clingfilm then leave to rise for about 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C/ 200°C fan. Beat an egg in a small bowl and brush the pain au raisins with the beaten egg, then bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is crispy and golden brown. If they get too dark too quickly, cover them with tin foil and bake for a little longer. Then remove the pain au raisins from the oven, transfer to a wire cooling rack, and leave to cool completely.
- For the icing, mix the icing sugar and the orange juice to make a stiff icing (if you accidentally make it too runny, just add a bit more icing sugar). Fill the icing into a small piping bag and cut off a tiny bit at the end, then drizzle the icing over the pain au raisins in zig zag lines.
- Leave the icing to set for a few minutes before serving. Enjoy!
