Paris brest
Makes: 8 individual cakes
Paris Brest
Ingredients
For the butter cream
- 4 cups 1l milk
- 12 eggs
- 1 ¼ cups 9oz./250g sugar
- 1 ⅔ cups 6oz./170g all-purpose flour
- 9 sticks 2 ¼ lb./1kg butter, cubed
- 1 ¾ lb. 850g praline paste, available at specialty stores or online, at room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups 300ml whipping cream, 30–35 percent butterfat
For the choux pastry
- ½ cup 125ml milk
- ½ cup 125ml water
- 7 tablespoons 3 ½ oz./100g butter
- 2 tablespoons 1oz./25g granulated sugar
- 1 scant teaspoon 4g salt
- 1 ¼ cups 4 ½ oz./125g all-purpose flour
- 4 eggs
- A handful of slivered almonds
Instructions
- Prepare the butter cream a day ahead.
- Bring the milk to a boil. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until the mixture is thick and pale. Stir in the flour, mix well, and pour the boiling milk over the mixture, stirring as you do so. Return the mixture to the stove, and simmer, stirring constantly, until it is thick (the consistency should be that of pastry cream). Leave to cool a little; then gradually stir in the cubed butter. Mix well. Gradually stir in the praline and mix through. Chill for at least 12 hours.
- To prepare the choux pastry, add the milk, water, salt, and sugar to a pan and bring to a boil. Pour in the flour, mix well, and simmer gently, stirring all the while, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Remove the pan from the heat, and mix in the eggs, one by one, stirring well each time.
- Spoon the dough into a pastry bag and pipe out a 4-in. (10-cm) diameter circle of choux pastry onto a baking sheet.
- Pipe out another circle on top that is just slightly smaller. Repeat the procedure seven times to make eight cakes. Scatter the tops with slivered almonds and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 300°F (150°C), and bake for another 10 minutes, until the cakes turn a nice golden color.
- Just before serving, whip the cream with an electric beater, and fold it into the butter cream.
- Spoon the butter cream into a pastry bag.
- Cut each cake in half horizontally and pipe the cream out onto the lower half. Replace the top part, and dust it with confectioners’ sugar.
A DASH OF ADVICE
This pastry has a history. It was created in 1910 by a Monsieur Louis Durand, a pastry chef in Maisons-Laffitte, to the west of Paris, to celebrate the famous Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race that crossed his town. He decided to make a cake in the shape of a bicycle wheel, comprised of two circles of choux pastry filled with a praline-based butter cream. We owe the introduction of this dessert at the Paul Bert entirely to my son Thomas, who learned how to make it in the kitchen of Gérard Besson, a famous chef with two Michelin stars, at his restaurant on the rue du Coq Héron in Paris. Today, this signature dessert at the Paul Bert is found on the menu of many bistros, but one of the best—if not the best—is made by Jacques Génin, pastry chef at La Chocolaterie in the Marais district of Paris.
IMAGE © CHRISTIAN SARRAMON
Extracted from French Bistro: Seasonal Recipes by Bertrand Auboyneau & François Simon (Published by Flammarion).
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