Meeting the man behind Trader Joe’s Chocolate Croissants
The strangest thing happened the other night. I was volunteering at a Beaujolais Nouveau party and fundraiser for the Alliance Française de Santa Rosa, and I overheard someone talking about Trader Joe’s Chocolate Croissants.
I might not have given it another thought, but I’d been taking pictures that night and discovered on the camera some photos Stephanie had taken recently of those very croissants. In her estimation, these were the most accurate pain au chocolats she’s ever had in this country, indistinguishable from the “real” thing. So the next time we made them, she took pictures of the croissants at each step of the process for an eventual blog post.
Thus I felt compelled to ask the man, “You make the Trader Joe’s Chocolate Croissants?”
“Yes” he said, and introduced himself as Jean-Yves Charon, Founder & Pastry Chef of Galaxy Desserts in Richmond, CA. I went on to tell him, “You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve got pictures of your croissants on my camera,” which of course I showed him, and I think blew his mind. I learned that he also makes a lemon tart for Trader Joe’s, soon some mini croissants, as well as desserts for the likes of Dean and Deluca and Williams Sonoma—you know those Molten Baby Cake kits? Yup, that’s him.
I’m totally stealing this blog post from Stephanie—with her permission, she said she’ll do a post in French, if she ever gets a break from dancing—so here are the pictures she took at the various stages of making Trader Joe’s and Jean-Yves Charon’s fabulous chocolate croissants:
Just out of the box, still frozen
The next morning, nine hours later
Fresh out of the oven, 25 minutes later
Oh. My. God.
I’ve been thinking I needed to get the Trader Joe’s Creme Brulée nominated for some kind of convenience food award, but I didn’t realize they had these. Wow.