Paris-Brest
The Paris-Brest is a classic of French patisserie. It is a ring-shaped pastry made of choux paste and filled with a praline mousseline cream (a pastry cream enriched with praline paste and butter).The dessert was created in 1910 by a pastry chef to celebrate the Paris-Brest-Paris cycling race, hence its round shape recalling a bicycle wheel. Today it is loved for the balance between the lightness of the choux pastry and the richness of the praline cream.
Ingredients
Choux pastry
- 55 g unsalted butter
- 63 ml water
- 63 ml milk
- 74 g flour
- 100-150 g eggs
- 2 g salt
Praline cream
- 500 ml milk
- 80 g egg yolks
- 130 g sugar
- 30 g flour
- 30 g cornflour
- 250 g softened butter
- 150 g praline paste
- flaked almonds
Method
Choux pastry
- Pour the milk, water, sugar, salt and butter into a saucepan and set over low heat.
- As soon as the first bubbles appear, take the pan off the heat and add the flour all at once.
- Stir with a spatula until all the flour has absorbed the liquid.
- Return to the heat to dry the dough out.
- Transfer the dough to a bowl and add half the eggs, mixing until fully incorporated.
- Repeat with the second half of the eggs.
- The dough is ready when it falls from the spatula in a ribbon.
- Pipe your Paris-Brest rings onto baking paper with a fluted nozzle.
- Glaze the pastry with a whole beaten egg.
- Scatter the almonds generously over the top.
- Bake at 180°C for 25 minutes.
Praline cream
- In a saucepan over medium heat, add the milk and half the sugar.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the egg yolks and the remaining sugar. Mix.
- Add the flour and the cornflour to the same bowl, all at once.
- Add a little milk to loosen the mixture.
- When the milk starts to boil, pour it into the egg and sugar mixture.
- Return everything to the pan over medium heat and stir until the cream thickens.
- Cover with cling film touching the surface and chill for 30 minutes.
- Take the cream out and beat it again to loosen it.
- Add the butter little by little.
- The cream will lighten in colour and firm up.
- Finally, add the praline paste.
- The cream is ready when it holds its shape without collapsing.
- Chill the cream for 30 minutes, then pipe.
Assembly
- Cut the Paris-Brest rings in half.
- Pipe using a fluted nozzle.
- Start with a first layer of cream.
- Then pipe a rosette pattern on top.
- Add a final layer of cream for extra volume.
- Place the other half of the ring on the cream.
- Dust with icing sugar.
- Chill before serving.
