Crossed with Croissant

Bakers Delight Chocolate Croissant
$3.20

Ah, the revered pâtissier, perhaps the most feared and respected in the whole brigade de cuisine, these are chefs who have devoted a lifetime to the refinement of but one food, the pastry. The entremetier, rôtisseur, even chef de cuisine, all kowtow and tremble at the feet of this most accomplished of culinary artists, for stationed against him or her they are mere plongeur. And whilst the layperson has been miseducated by a certain programme into regarding croquembouche or soufflé as the most difficult dishes in the pâtissier’s repertoire, refined gourmets know that it is truly the croissant, that leavened crescent of buttery delight, that is the true test of a great pastry chef.

After sampling this particular pain au chocolat à la Boulangerie Plaisir I am left with the distinct feeling that this otherwise trusty establishment does not even employ a pastry chef, or if they do that the chap should be presently shot. For one, upon entering the store and asking the attending serviteur to "fetch me a sho-co-laht cwah-son quick smart", she replied with nothing but the listless blank stare of ignorant youth. "Sorry wot?" she drawled in that crude, vexing accent of the Australian species. "A cwah-son you ingrate!" I fumed. "Oh, you mean a chock-lat crass-ont? Yeah, no worries," was her incivil reply. 'Showing such irreverence for the elocution of the finest of culinary grammars, Français, in that typically Antipodean manner, refusing to enunciate words in anything but her own vulgar vernacular,' I thought to myself, 'It simply isn’t possible that a pâtissier resides here!'

My fears were confirmed when, upon my arrival home, I unwrapped the pastry to find a veritable deluge of sucre glace covering the dessert. The pastry itself was barely apprehensible beneath this Antarctic blizzard of white powder, both in appearance and taste. Icing sugar should be that ever-so-brief sweet hint that prepares one for more complex tastes to come, not rudely overtake all others as the principle flavour. Not to mention that this excess of powder continually slid off the pastry and onto my cravat, which was particularly distressing as it was an otherwise fetching black number I was sporting at the time. Any pâtissier worth their salt would cringe in shame at such a clumsily executed garnishing.


Bakers Delight's fanciful idealThe sad reality

Unfortunately, the rest of the dish did little to redeem itself, despite the generosity of its serving (one could feed a family with a single pastry from Bakers Delight). Whilst appearing nice and fluffy, it was a little on the doughy side and lacking in crispness to call itself a true croissant. Couple this with the unevenness of the baking – cindered and blackened on the underside, undercooked above – and the execution was decidedly haphazard. Much the same with the chocolat filling. An otherwise satisfying texture as it sluiced gently between the palate and tongue, and welcome billet-doux to balance the heaviness of the pastry, it was nevertheless unevenly distributed throughout, tainting all suggestions of harmony.

Such baking faux pas are to be expected from a franchise outlet that produces baked goods en masse using little more than a formulaic recipe, an industrial oven and the labour of oafish amateurs. What an injustice to that most respected of French sweets! For whence I journeyed throughout the villas and provinces of that land of liberté, égalité et pastry, I happened upon pâtissiers that would toil hours on a single croissant, leavening the dough, tempering the chocolat, meticulously forming crescents. They would keep their eyes trained on the oven for every second of the time it took, so the pastry would emerge perfectly baked. These French pain au chocolats were of such sweet delight that I felt much like I believe Adam did upon his first taste of the Apple. And whilst I know he did wrong, so too did I in the great quantity I consumed, for such sweet sin was this.

The croissant I eat today, however, fulfils no such desire except to return to the homeland of this otherwise delectable delight. For Australia, and Bakers Delight in particular, is where pastry comes to die, murdered in as crude and obscene a fashion as its inhabitants do the French tongue.


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