A well-made chocolate croissant is a simple yet elegant treat – a flaky, buttery pastry with rich delicious chocolate inside. When I saw these La Boulangere Chocolatines at Costco, the first thing that came to mind was confusion. Are they a chocolate croissant, or something else?
After doing some research, I learned that there’s some controversy in France as to whether a chocolate croissant should be called a pain au chocolat or a chocolatine! Anyway, the bottom line is these should be a flaky, buttery pastry with chocolate inside. Can a pastry that requires such a high level of execution to be good work as a pre-packaged bakery item?
Other packaged bakery items from Costco I’ve reviewed are the Universal Bakery Petite Cinnamon Rolls, Donsuemor Traditional Madeleines, School Safe Banana Chocolate Chip Snack Cakes, Sugar Bowl Bakery Cake Bites, LeMarie Patissier Mini Crepes, La Boulangere Chocolate Hazelnut Filled Crepes and the HartyBake Maple Belgian Waffles.
Location in Store
These are located in the bakery section at Costco, the item number is 1284410.
Taste
I think they’re supposed to be chocolate croissant, but they’re more like an oily bun with chocolate inside. The dough is fairly heavy and isn’t flaky at all.
The dough is also very plain. It doesn’t have the nice buttery pastry flavor a good croissant has. Again, it tastes more like a white bread. It’s somewhat moist.
The chocolate is the highlight. There’s a good amount of it, at least compared to other chocolate croissants I’ve had, which tend be fairly light on chocolate compared to other treats. The chocolate filling tastes okay, it’s sweet and smooth.
If you can enjoy these for what they are, which isn’t really a chocolate croissant, they’re not horrendous but still not great. The dough isn’t great, but you mostly taste the chocolate anyway. It’s nice that they’re individually packaged, but the fact that they’ve already been frozen is a bit annoying. I ate mine the day after buying them, and I’m sure even with the packaging they get stale over time.
Cost
The bag comes with 16 individually wrapped chocolatines and costs $12.49 Canadian at Costco. This seems pretty reasonable but after trying them I wouldn’t pay for them again.
Convenience
The fact these are individually packaged makes them easy to share with others or bring in a backpack or lunch bag to school or work. The best before date is about a month and a half from when I purchased them.
My toddler daughter took one bite of these and didn’t like them so I probably wouldn’t even recommend buying them for kids, both Sean and I didn’t really want to eat more after trying them.
Nutrition
Calories
One Chocolatine contains 180 calories, nine grams of fat, 21 grams of carbohydrates, one gram of fibre, six grams of sugar, three grams of protein and 160 milligrams of sodium.
These aren’t worth the calories in my opinion but I am kind of shocked to see how little sugar they have in them.
Ingredients
The ingredients list doesn’t really surprise me. I wish they used butter instead of palm fat but if they did use butter these would be more expensive and not have such a long expiry date. The Chocolatines contain eggs, milk, wheat and rye and may contain soy.
Scoring
Taste: 3/10
Cost: 6/10
Convenience: 10/10
Nutrition: 0/10
Overall
Walk on by!
There are so many other options from the Costco bakery that taste much better. Skip these.
Have you tried the Costco La Boulangere Chocolatine? What did you think of them? Drop a comment below!
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
the product in bellingham washington in the usa in my costco is called pains au choolat by the same company,a 720 g bag.contains 16. same product with tasteless air bread, like what poor college students use to patch holes in drywall . it is squishy,and sticks to the roof of your mouth,and a glob when it is swallowed. the only thing that can be done is to dehydrate it, or i toast it in my iron skillet,or the toaster oven. i thought,being from france that it would be a nice tasty pastry with nice chocolate on the inside. i ate them anyway, instead of feeding them to the birds in the driveway. as the saying goes, it would gag a maggot.
I agree. These are nothing like a Pain au Chocolat. Having just spent five weeks in Nice, France, a Pain au Chocolat was my go-to breakfast every morning along with a Cafe au Lait. Quite disappointing.
Natalie when are you posting a new video to your YouTube channel I miss them
Those have got to be the grossest-looking excuse for a “croissant” I have ever seen.