Sweet Chocolate Bites

Bouchees Gourmandes au Chocolat

(Sweet Chocolate Bites)

Well, the brioche fun continues...I made a big batch of brioche dough last week-end with a bit of whole wheat mixed in (see earlier post). Too much to use up at once. So I kept the leftover in the fridge in a zip-lock bag for about 5 days. According to the website Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, that's the limit before freezing the dough. No problemo ! I've been tempted to make chocolate croissants with the brioche dough for a while. I do love my chocolate :) To make sure I had enough dough to share the sweets, I decided to go for the bite-size category. Easy to sample, great for a guilt-less snack, and fun for kids to bite into.

After days in the fridge, dough was not sticky anymore. It was like playing with soft clay. So I took small pieces, flattened them in a circles, filled them up with semi-sweet chocolate chips (the kind you use for cookies), wrapped the chocolate chips with dough and rolled the dough into a ball between my hands. When all the dough was used, I whipped an egg with a tablespoon of sugar and some vanilla flavoring, and I thoroughly brushed the egg glaze all around the dough balls to get that shiny light brown color.

Before

After

After baking at 375F for about 30 minutes (overkill, I got distracted by the dog), I obtained a full tray of bite-sized buns with a heart of melted chocolate ! I noticed the buns did not rise much. It could be because of the dough freshness or because I flattened it in the process.

While best out of the oven, the buns can be heated up in a microwave for 20 seconds to recapture that hot and fresh taste with oozing chocolate. One can imagine replacing the chocolate chips for other appropriate fillings, including jams, peanut butter, white chocolate, etc...or mixture thereof !

Great for breakfast, morning or afternoon snacks, you can slide a few in your pocket to enjoy later. And if you've got more to spare, don't forget your friends !