Chocolate Croissants

I love love love chocolate croissants. I could eat them every morning for breakfast and every night for dessert.

When we lived in California there was a cute litte French bakery about a block away from my office. When the craving struck I just walked down and picked up a $4.00 piece of heaven. The price and my waistline kept me from over indulging too much.

Since moving to Flagstaff (sometimes called the "Ghetto in the Meadow") my love for chocolate croissants has not wavered, but I have had to satisfy my hunger for them with the Williams Sonoma mail-order croissants. They are delicious, but expensive ($40 for a box of 15 not including S&H), and they must be planned in advance. The croissants must defrost overnight, and then sit for another hour or so to rise. A sudden urge cannot be satisfied until a good 8-10 hours later.

We have no donut shops here and no pastry shops other than chocolate confectioners. There was no place sophisitcated enough to make a good croissant......... until this week.

While doing my usual mid-week milk run at Safeway I saw a sign next door that said "Village Baker Now Open!". I was shocked to see the sign since the Village Baker was a client of mine and I had just designed a new store for them a few blocks over. What were they possibly doing here in a second location. I walked in and could not believe my eyes. There before me was a case filled with several different pastries and croissants and out of the corner of one was peeking out the unmistakable sight of melted croissant chocolate. I was told by the boy behind the counter that the owner had decided to open a second location that sold pastries and cakes in addition to the location that I knew that sold only commercial bread loaves and rolls.

I bought one of the croissants and the rest is history. I went by this morning and picked up a couple and I will stop by later this afternoon and pick up 6 more for the weekend. I am going to overindulge and roll around in the crispy buttery chocolate decadence until I am sick of the sight of chocolate croissants. My only hope is that there are other people in town that will support this new bakery and their pastries, otherwise I am going to be spending a lot of money trying to keep the place open with my patronage just so that I can continue to have my croissants.