Paris Brest

Today in the glorious class of patisserie, we made a French specialty called Paris Brest, which is made from pate a choux, one of the first pastry bases we learned.  It is then filled with praline cream.  Ain't nothing wrong with that! (and I usually hate the word ain't, but feel it is only fitting in this instance since we are using praline cream).

Things were low key in the pastry kitchen today, just how I like them.  So, there isn't much more to report other than the details of Paris Brest.  Enjoy.

Starting ingredients.

Melt the butter in some water.

When boiling, pull off heat, add the flour all at once and stir vigorously.

Until it becomes this.

Add some eggs.

Mix.

And then pipe onto the baking sheet.

Cover with almonds and bake.

Until golden brown.

Meanwhile, heat some milk or cream.

Whisk eggs and sugar.

Add custard powder.

Mix altogether and then pour onto a sheet to cool.

Once cool, pop into a mixer.

Add just the tiniest amount of butter :)

And an equally small amount of praline flavored filling - then mix.

Pipe onto the bottom half of the pastry dough.

Add the inner circle.

Pipe with more filling.

Finish by placing the tops of the pastry dough onto the filling.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and voila - the baby Paris Brests are finished!

And so is the Big Mama.