French connection: 8 top covetable croissants

WHEN is a croissant not a croissant? When it has no butter perhaps? When it has nothing like the short list of ingredients in the traditional croissant — flour, yeast, water, butter, a little sugar and salt, and instead a long list of cheaper non-hydrogenated fats and oils, emulsifiers and acidifiers, dough enhancers and antioxidants.

For this week’s survey we looked for the best croissant which includes plain, pain au chocolat or any other type which took our fancy when we saw them displayed.

We tried several from bakers and supermarkets and gave our top marks for tasty, light, evenly layered pastry. If they were flavoured with chocolate or almond we looked for top quality ingredients and lightness. All of the pre-wrapped samples had a long list of ingredients and were far too sweet, doughy, soft and cake-like to make our Top 8.