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Freshly baked pain aux raisins served on a plate with milk and jam.

Pain Aux Raisins Recipe

Flaky layers wrapped around creamy vanilla filling and plump raisins make Pain Aux Raisins a pastry you remember. It brings the scent, comfort, and sweetness of a real bakery tray fresh from the oven.

Course: Breakfast
Cuisine: French
Servings: 25
Author: Dough Recipe by Pierre Hermé

Ingredients

DOUGH

For the Dough

  • 750 g – 6 cups all-purpose flour
  • 14 g – 2 packets active dry yeast
  • 110 g – 4 oz + 2 tsp sugar
  • 70 g – 5 tbsp milk
  • 18 g – 1 tbsp + ½ tsp salt
  • 53 g – 3 ¾ tbsp butter – at room temperature
  • 23 g – 2 tbsp milk powder
  • 300 g – 1 ¼ cups water

For the Beurrage

  • 490 g – 4 ⅓ sticks butter – divided in two, at room temperature

For the Egg Wash

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 pinch salt

FILLING

  • 1 L – 4 cups crème pâtissière – made with 1 L – 4 cups milk
  • raisins – softened in warm water

GLAZE

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup water

Instructions

Dough

  1. Sift the flour into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a hook attachment. Add the salt, 110 g – 4 oz sugar, milk powder, milk, and 53 g – 3 ¾ tablespoons soft butter.
  2. Dissolve the yeast in half of the lukewarm water with the 2 teaspoons of sugar, and set it aside to activate. When frothy, add it to the ingredients in the bowl.
  3. Knead only until the dough comes together (avoid overworking it, as this affects the gluten). Add the remaining water, as needed, to obtain a smooth dough.
  4. Shape the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with cling wrap, and let it rise for 1 to 1 ½ hours or until doubled in size.
  5. Punch down the dough with your fist to bring it back to its initial size. Cover it again with cling wrap, and refrigerate it for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
  6. Punch it down once more to its initial size.
  7. At this point, you can continue with the recipe or store the dough in the fridge overnight. In both cases, chill the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes first.
  8. When ready to continue, remove the dough from the fridge, roll it into a long rectangle, cover it with cling wrap, and return it to the fridge while you prepare the butter for the beurrage.
  9. Cut two pieces of baking paper and measure them against the rolled dough. Make two paper rectangles, each two-thirds the size of the dough. Fold the edges to create packets that will hold the butter securely.

  10. Divide your butter into 2 equal pieces, and put them into the 2 open paper packets. Close the paper packets and roll them from the outside until the butter fills the packets completely. Once the packets are evenly rolled, put them back in the fridge to firm up again. Make sure that both your rolled butter and rolled dough are very cold before proceeding, or the butter will leak and your pains aux raisins will not turn out properly.

    Note: The original recipe calls for butter from the fridge, but I used room-temperature butter, and it worked just as well.

  11. When the butter has firmed up, remove the paper from one packet. Take the chilled dough out of the fridge and place the butter on the lower two-thirds of the dough. Fold the bottom third up over the butter, and then fold the top third down over the centre to create three layers.
  12. Roll the dough into a long rectangle again, and repeat the same simple three-fold turn, this time without adding more butter.
  13. Cover the folded dough with cling wrap, place it in the freezer for 30 minutes, and then refrigerate it for 1 hour.
  14. Roll out the dough again into a long rectangle approximately the same size as before, and repeat the same simple three-fold turns, the first one with the remaining butter and the next one without. At this stage, the dough should look smooth and evenly layered, similar to the reference photo. Flour your work surface regularly, and brush away any excess flour before folding.
  15. You should now have completed 4 single turns in total, one with butter, one without, a rest period, then one with the second portion of butter, and one last turn without.
  16. The dough is now ready, though it is best to leave it in the fridge overnight. Resting makes shaping the pain aux raisins easier and helps the butter firm up again, so it will not leak during rolling.

Shaping

  1. The next day, divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll each piece into 2.5 mm – 0.1 inch thick sheets. If the dough starts to warm up, place it back in the fridge to cool. It is easier to work with one piece at a time while keeping the rest covered in the fridge.
  2. Drain, rinse, and dry the raisins.
  3. Spread ⅓ of the pastry cream over one rolled dough rectangle and sprinkle ⅓ of the raisins on top.
  4. Roll the dough from the larger edge, as if making a Swiss roll.
  5. Wrap the filled roll with cling wrap and place it in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes. Repeat the process with the remaining dough.
  6. When the rolls have firmed up, cut them into neat 2.5 cm – 1-inch slices using a sharp knife.
  7. Place the slices on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving 5 cm – 2 inches of space between them.
  8. Let them rise for 1½ to 2 hours at room temperature. Loosely cover them with cling wrap so the surface does not dry out.
  9. Once the pains aux raisins have risen, brush them with the egg wash.
  10. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on their size, or until golden brown, in an oven preheated to 220°C – 430°F and then lowered to 190°C – 375°F immediately after placing them inside.

Glazing

  1. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water to a boil to make a syrup.
  2. Once the pains aux raisins have baked, brush them with the syrup and return them to the oven for another 2 minutes to make them glossy.
  3. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before eating.

Recipe Notes

As making pains aux raisins takes time, preparing the full batch makes planning easier. Let the baked pastries cool completely before wrapping them well in foil and freezing them. When you want to serve them, take them straight from the freezer and warm them in a pre-heated oven at 190°C – 375°F for about 5 minutes until crisp again.