Tasty Chocolate Pastry Twists Recipe with Puff Pastry UK

Recipe Notes

If you have any questions about how to make this recipe, please post a comment below and I will get back to you.

Servings: The recipe makes 12 tasty portions of chocolate pastry twists.

Calories per serving: 155 calories.

Remember: Please tag #whitakerschocolates with photos of your homemade chocolate pastry twists.

Laura's Top Tips for Making Chocolate Twists

I treat cold pastry as the first rule. Warm dough slumps, the layers stick together and the twists bake flat. I take the sheet from the fridge, unroll it, then get on with the chocolate at once. If the kitchen is hot, I slide the pastry back in the fridge for ten minutes after I have spread the filling.

I find it best if you melt Whitakers Easymelt Chocolate slowly. I set a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and stir until it is smooth. I then take the bowl off the heat and wait a few minutes. Hot chocolate soaks into the pastry and leaks on the tray. Slightly cooled chocolate sits in a neat layer and stays put when you fold the sheet.

When I tried it, a thin, even coat worked better than a thick slab. I leave a small border around the edge so the two sides of pastry can meet and seal. If filling oozes out of the sides, I wipe it away with a knife before I cut the strips. Extra chocolate on the outside burns and tastes bitter.

I cut the folded pastry into strips about 2cm wide. Wider strips look rustic but bake unevenly. Narrower ones snap when you twist them. I use a sharp knife and one clean cut for each strip. Sawing stretches the dough and spoils the layers.

I give each strip two or three gentle turns, not a tight coil. Over-twisting squeezes the chocolate out and stops the pastry rising. I lay the twists on baking paper with a finger-width gap between them. They puff as they cook, and they need that space.

I always brush with beaten egg and finish with a pinch of caster sugar. The egg gives a deep gold colour. The sugar adds a light crunch. I keep the brush moving so egg does not pool in the twists, as pooled egg fries and turns dull.

The first time I made these, I pulled the tray out too soon because the tops looked done. The centres were still pale and soft. I now bake until the twists are golden all over, usually 15 to 18 minutes. If your oven runs hot at the back, turn the tray halfway.

I cool them on a wire rack, not on the hot tray. Steam trapped underneath softens the base. They taste best after five to ten minutes, when the pastry is still crisp and the chocolate has settled.

Serving Suggestions

Serve the twists slightly warm, when the pastry is flaky and the chocolate is soft. A plain plate is enough. I like them with a mug of builder’s tea or a strong coffee. The bitterness of the drink cuts through the richness of the bake.

For a simple pudding, put two twists on a plate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The cold ice cream against the warm pastry is a good contrast. Fresh raspberries or sliced strawberries sit well beside them and add a sharp note.

If you want a smarter finish, dust the cooled twists with icing sugar or drizzle a little extra melted Whitakers Easymelt Chocolate over the top. Do this once they have cooled or the icing sugar melts.

They work at brunch next to yoghurt and fruit, and they travel well in a tin for a picnic or a packed lunch. Children often prefer them as they are, with no extras. For a party plate, stand them in a jug or stack them in a loose pile so people can take one without crushing the rest.

Avoid serving them straight from a roaring-hot oven. The filling is molten and will burn a mouth. Give them a short rest first.

Nutritional Information for This Recipe

How to Store Your Homemade Pastry Twists

Let the twists cool fully on a wire rack before you pack them. Warm pastry in a closed box creates steam, and steam turns a crisp bake soft.

At room temperature, keep them in an airtight tin for up to two days. I line the tin with baking paper and add a second sheet if I stack them, so they do not stick. They stay pleasant to eat, though the pastry is at its best on the day you bake.

The fridge is not my first choice. Cold air dulls the flake. If your kitchen is very warm, use the fridge and accept that you will need to refresh them. Eat refrigerated twists within three days.

To bring back some crunch, heat the oven to 160C fan and warm the twists for four to six minutes. A toaster oven does the same job. I do not use the microwave. It makes the pastry tough and the chocolate greasy.

You can freeze unbaked twists. Shape them, freeze them on a tray until firm, then move them to a freezer bag. They keep for about two months. Bake from frozen, with egg wash and sugar on top, and add a few extra minutes in the oven. Baked twists also freeze, though the texture is a little less delicate after thawing. Defrost at room temperature, then warm through in the oven as above.

A Brief History of Chocolate Pastry Twists in the UK

Chocolate pastry twists sit at the meeting point of two older British habits: layered pastry and a love of chocolate with tea.

Puff pastry reached British kitchens long before supermarket sheets existed. A handwritten recipe for “puff paist” appears in 1692, in the manuscript of Hannah Bisaker. The method is familiar even now. Butter is laid on dough, then the dough is folded and rolled so that heat in the oven creates thin layers.

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, British cooks used this style of pastry for pies, tarts and small sweet bakes. Eccles cakes, Bakewell puddings in their earlier puff-pastry form, and countless tea-table fancies all grew from that skill.

Chocolate arrived in Britain first as a drink. By the eighteenth century it was grated from a hard cake and mixed with liquid. Eating chocolate in bars came later. Once bars were common, bakers began to tuck chocolate inside pastry.

The French pain au chocolat shaped high-street taste, and British bakeries followed with their own chocolate swirls, palmiers and twists.

Ready-rolled puff pastry changed home baking in the late twentieth century. A chilled sheet meant you no longer needed an afternoon of folding dough. That is why a tray of chocolate twists became a realistic weekday bake rather than a bakery-only treat.

High-street coffee shops helped fix the shape in the public mind: a twisted strip, golden on the outside, with chocolate running through the middle.

Yorkshire has its own long chocolate story. Whitakers began in 1889, when John and Rebecca Whitaker opened a grocery and draper’s shop in Crosshills near Skipton. The family moved into baking and chocolate, and the business still makes chocolate in Skipton today.

Easymelt couverture is a modern tool for that same tradition. It is designed to melt smoothly for cooking, so a home baker can get a clean chocolate layer without specialist kit.

The twist you bake at home is not a museum piece. It is a short, practical descendant of British puff pastry, continental chocolate pastry and the supermarket sheet that made both available on an ordinary afternoon.