Pain aux Raisins

Raisins deserve more love! They’re sweet, full of flavor, and an essential element of one of my favorite pastries. # 246: Pain aux Raisins

Have you ever been completely surprised by an ingredient list? I’ve been eating these yummy spirals for years, always imagining the filling as a thin layer of pastry cream. Turns out it’s actually frangipane! It’s rich and creamy, perfectly complimenting the flaky pastry and tart raisins.

Luckily I wasn’t too far off the mark – frangipane is a baked custard with finely ground almonds mixed in.

Don’t tell anyone, but I snuck mini chocolate chips in with the raisins. 10/10 would recommend!

As this was an impromptu weekend morning bake, and I don’t have a time machine, I used frozen puff pastry dough.

If you’re feeling thorough, I’d recommend sifting the almond flour before mixing it in! Having lumps of ground almond is nicer than pockets of raw flour, but still.

While pastry cream is cooked before it ever touches a pastry shell, frangipane needs a long nap in the oven. Custard is the best no matter how you cook it!

Offset spatula acting as a paintbrush today.

Pastry Joy by Nicky Reed. Medium: frangipane painted on puff pastry canvas. Cost: Priceless

Most recipes suggest soaking the raisins in cognac, but work with what you’ve got. Mine ended up in a bath of grand marnier and vanilla.

Chocolate polka dots.

Ok so it uses way less raisins than I thought it would. They went to hang out with my extra frangipane in some tiny tartlets!

Aww yesss.

I wasn’t sure what would get the best results, so went with a combo of options.

Drumroll please… the ones in the ramekins turned out with the most even bake! The ones directly on the pan browned on the bottom way before the middle of the puff pastry spiral was cooked.