Chocolate Crossants - A Comparison

When in Las Vegas, my friend and I always go to Paris and have breakfast at Café Belle Madeleine.  

We get a Cheese Danish and a Chocolate Croissant and split them and each have half of each...mmm, très bien!!

We love both, but especially love the Chocolate Croissant, so I was happy to find some frozen varieties in the freezer cases as local grocery stores.  

I decided to do a comparison of two that I found

One at Walmart and one at Trader Joe's.  

Trader Joe's (like everything) is a little more pricey than Walmart.  Trader Joe's is $4.99, while Walmart is $3.98, so roughly a $1 difference.  Both come in a pack of 4 and they have the same baking time and temperature.

 

 

 

There is one MAJOR difference in these 2 brands.  Trader's Joe's brand needs time to prove.  The box recommends setting out the frozen croissants the night before and allow to prove overnight.  This allows the croissant to double in size.  While this is great, if you need instant gratification, you may not want to wait 8 hours or so before you bake your croissant.

The Walmart brand is ready to bake, right out of the box.

When you compare the frozen size, they are about the same.  The Walmart brand seems slightly bigger than Trader Joe's while in the frozen state.

 

Trader Joe's is on the right and is lighter colored than the browner Walmart version on the left.

 

 

However, after proving, the Trader Joe's is twice the size of the Walmart brand. You can see from this state that the Trader Joe's brand (R) is a bigger and looks flakier than the Walmart version (L)

 

 

I baked them both together at 350 degrees F for 22 minutes.  After baking, the Trader Joe's version was very brown and appeared flakier than the Walmart version, which didn't brown as much but it was fully done.

A cross-section cut shows the difference in height between Trader Joe's (top photo) and Walmart (bottom photo) - I admit that Trader Joe's looks more like what you expect a croissant to look like - flaky, fluffy and light.

BUT...how do they compare in taste?  Well...even though it doesn't look very flaky, the Walmart verson was actually quite flaky and had a good tastes.  It tasted how you expect a croissant to taste, but...honestly, it wasn't very chocolaty.  The filling almost reminded me of chocolate chip cookie dough but didn't have a strong chocolate flavor.

The Trader Joe's version also tasted flaky and you could pull the layers apart and it had a VERY strong chocolate taste...there was no denying the abundance of chocolate in this one.

 Final Results:

Trader Joe's for the win!  If you want an authentic looking and tasting Chocolate Croissant, buy Trader Joe's.  While it does require some forethought, since you have to allow proofing time, the flavor is pretty close to the fresh made croissants from Café Belle Madeleine. If serving to guest, you can impress them with your amazing croissant baking skills (hey, you don't have to tell them your secret)

If you need a quick fix and don't want to wait, the Walmart brand is pretty good, especially since you can have one in about 20 minutes, but they are not something I would be proud to serve to guest.