Pain Aux Raisins
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Want to try the technical from the 2022 Bread Week Episode of the GBBO? Here’s your chance! Pain Aux Raisins are flaky, tender, and confoundingly delicious!
These flaky laminated Pain Aux Raisins feature a filling made of Creme Patisserie and raisins, rolled in an enriched layered dough. Different and delicious.
But are they bread though?? Or are they pastry?? I think that can be debated! On one hand, they HAVE yeast in them and that can signify bread or enriched dough for something like cinnamon rolls.
But on the other hand, they’re MUCH MORE like a Danish. This recipe is VERY SIMILAR to this Danish Pastry recipe. With yeast AND Lamination, and THAT was a pastry week bake.
Then again croissants have lamination and they’re considered bread. In their original form, they’re not sweet either.
To me, it felt more like a pastry week bake rather than a bread week bake. And yet here I am making them for Bread Week!
Bread week
The bakes for Bread Week 2022 were:
- Signature Bake: 2 Homemade Pizzas <- is THIS bread??
- Technical Bake: Pain Aux Raisins
- Showstopper: Smörgåstårta
In fact, the ONLY one that REALLY had bakers making bread, REAL HONEST TO GOD BREAD, was the Smörgåstårta. But I was not up to that challenge. And we’d already done Pizza a few years back so the logical choice is Pain Aux Raisins and we’ll pretend it’s pastry week.
Tips to Make Better Pain Aux Raisins
Read through the recipe and directions at least once BEFORE making these. These take much longer than the bakers were given and longer than Pauls’s recipe on the GBBO site says.
Pound out the butter AND make the creme pat while the dough is chilling the first time. You have a whole hour to work with so both can be attained.
Keep the creme pat in the fridge so it’s thick. It spreads like mayonnaise when it’s nice and thick.
When cutting into rolls it’s best to use the dental floss or thread trick for cutting. Use a clean piece of plain dental floss to cut rolls. Not mint flavor! Or use a clean fresh thread. You can see my thread in the background below.
Slide the dental floss/thread under the roll pull the two ends up over the top crisscross them and pull tight and it will slice a perfect roll.
The rolls I made on a pan with parchment paper ALL had tails. You can see them tucked under the roll here.
The rolls made on a pan with aluminum foil were PERFECT. I think I’m saying foil is better. I think the rolls just stayed together better on a pan line with foil. The rolls on the parchment paper pan were all loose.
Pain Aux Raisins
Ingredients
Laminated Dough
- 2 3/4 cup bread flour
- 1 cup cold butter divided
- 2 1/3 TBSP sugar or caster sugar
- 2 1/2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 2 eggs DIVIDED save one for the egg wash later
Pastry Cream or Creme Pat
- 1/4 cup sugar or caster sugar
- 2 TBSP corn starch
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 TBSP vanilla extract OR 1/2 vanilla pod
Other fillings Ingredients
- 1/2 cups raisins
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- zest of one orange
Icing
- juice of the orange
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- put the flour and 2 TBSP butter in a mixing bowl and work the butter into the flour until it's crumbly
- add the sugar, and salt yeast and stir in
- then mix the water, milk, and egg together and add it to the flour to make make a sticky dough
- turn the dough out on a clean counter and knead it for 5 minutes
- use a dough scraper to scrape up the dough every 3-4 pushes because it will stick
- do not add flour just use the dough scraper to bring it back together
- when the dough is soft and yes it will still be sticky cover it tightly and refrigerate
- while it's in the fridge make the creme pat, put the dry ingredients in a heat-proof bowl along with 1 TBSP of the milk and the egg, whisk to combine
- the heat the remaining milk and the vanilla to almost boiling over medium heat
- pour it over the egg mixture and stir to combine
- pour the whole thing back in the pan and whisk over medium-low heat until it is thick, do not stop whisking!
- when it's thickened put it through a sieve if it's lumpy
- put it in a bowl, put plastic wrap right on the surface, and chill until completely cooled
- next take the remaining butter and bash it out until it's a rectangle about 12×7 1/2 inches
- refrigerate until ready to use
- when the dough has been in for an hour pull it out and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to 8×20 inches
- lay the butter on the bottom 2/3 of the dough, fold the top down over the butter, then fold the bottom over that
- pinch the sides together so the butter is completely encased in dough, wrap tightly, and refrigerate for 20 minutes
- then pull it out and lay it down so the seam side runs away from you on the left-hand side, roll it out to 8×20, fold the bottom third of the dough up, and fold the top third down to form a 3-layer piece of dough
- wrap and chill for 20 minutes
- then pull it out and lay it down so the seam side runs away from you on the left-hand side, roll it out to 8×20, fold the bottom third of the dough up, and fold the top third down to form a 3-layer piece of dough
- roll the dough out to a 12×12 inch square
- spread the creme pat over the dough to within 1 inch of all sides
- sprinkle with raisins, cinnamon, and orange zest
- roll the dough towards you like you're making cinnamon rolls, tug each roll to make sure it's nice and tight
- cut 12 rolls using dental floss or thread
- put foil on two baking sheets and lay 6 rolls on each sheet, cover and let rise for an hour or until rolls are doubled in size
- when ready to bake preheat the over to 425°
- beat the egg for the egg wash
- uncover rolls and brush with eggwash
- bake for 15-20 minutes, turning trays so the rolls brown evenly
- cool for 5 minutes on the trays and then move them to a cooling rack
- mix the juice of the orange with the powdered sugar and drizzle over the rolls
I normally cut my cinnamon rolls with thread or dental floss, but didn’t think it would work with raisins.
I think my tails were due to following Paul’s recipe… said to leave a 2cm gap on the far side of the dough. I followed that even though it is opposite what I do normally. the filling was squishing out of the finished edge, with no clean dough to squeeze together to close the seam.
I think I’ll stick to following YOUR recipes. 😀
THANK YOU for the more realistic time estimate. It actually took me about 8 hours. . I’m a slow baker in the best of times, let alone the first time doing a GBBO technical challenge. I also chilled my laminated dough between steps, including before slicing, to make sure the butter didn’t melt. Overall, super happy with the results! Paul and Prue wouldn’t like the tails though .