Magico Food - Pain Aux Raisin (Sourdough)

Memories of a trip to the Athlone for breakfast pastries warm from the baker's oven are one of the enduring memories .

One must-have of the visit must be pain aux raisins, a soft, warm pastry filled with vanilla cream and plump raisins.

Warm from the oven, they are at their irresistible best.

But even if that's not your memory, this lovely breakfast pastry can be yours.


Pain au raisin translates to bread with raisins, but you may have also seen it referred to pain au raisin escargot, because of the snail-like shape of the little individual pastries. The dough rises and is folded and refrigerated several times as you would when making croissants, in a process called lamination—it's what helps create those flaky layers. Then it's spread with frangipane, sprinkled with raisins, rolled up, sliced, brushed with an egg wash, and then baked. It does take a few hours all told, to let the dough rise, but much of it is hands-off work and you can go about and do other things. And then, in the end, you'll have a delicious pastry to eat with tea or coffee.