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Choux Paris-Brest


A sweet silky dessert, perfect for a sweet treat when in need of comfort with the warm flavour of hazelnut, the crumbly craquelin top and not to mention then mini surprise in the centre, a mini choux filled with pure praline!


This dessert is pretty straight-forward to make but the result is amazing and the praline crème mousseline is to-die-for silky and just the right amount of sweetness and flavour.


To make sure you won't get choux that are a little soggy, I put less milk and more water, which is what I changed in the original recipe I had made so definitely put this amount of water and milk to not get soggy choux!



Ingredients

For the craquelin:

  • 30 g butter

  • 37 g flour

  • 37 demerara sugar

For the choux pastry:

  • 150 ml of water

  • 30 ml of milk

  • 80 g unsalted butter

  • 1 tablespoon caster sugar

  • 3/4 teaspoon of salt

  • 112 g plain flour

  • 3 eggs

For the crème mousseline:

  • 234 ml of milk

  • 40 g caster sugar

  • 48 g egg yolks

  • 13 g flour

  • 13 g cornstarch

  • 40 g butter

  • 4 tablespoons of praliné

  • 100 g butter

To assemble:

  • 2 tablespoons of praline, in a piping bag



Recipe

For the craquelin:

  1. Combine the softened butter + sugar + flour in a bowl. You can either do this in the stand mixer or with your fingertips. As you continue mixing, a ball of dough will form. Reserve in the fridge to harden for at least 1 hour.

  2. Roll out between 2 sheets of parchment paper or on a Silpat (to not be forced to add flour to make the dough not stick). Roll to about 2 mm thick and cut out small circles, I used a big piping nozzle to get a good-sized circle. Reserve your cut out circles in the fridge.

For the choux pastry:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C and grease + line 2 baking trays with greaseproof parchment or a Silpat.

  2. Melt the butter in the milk + water + salt + sugar.

  3. Once the butter is melted, add in in one go the plain flour and mix vigorously with a spatula on low heat until a bit of the ball of dough formed starts sticking to the bottom of the pan, then you know the dough is cooked out.

  4. Place in the stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment and add in one at a time the eggs, mixing well between each one.

  5. Place the choux pastry in a piping bag and pipe 6 circles of dough quite close to each other but not touching to make a circle. Pipe individual big circle around and minicircles that with fill the big ones (Pipe 1 mini circle for each big circle of choux you pipe). Place the circles of craquelin only on the big circles of choux pastry.

  6. Reduce the temperature of the oven to 180°C and bake for 30 minutes for the mini choux and 45 minutes for the larger ones.

  7. Leave to cool on a baking rack.

For the crème mousseline:

  1. Make a crème patissière with the sugar + milk + egg yolks + flour + cornstarch. Whilst the pastry cream is still hot, add-in 30 g of the butter and mix in to make it melt.

  2. Leave to cool in the fridge, covering it to the touch with clingfilm so that a skin doesn't form.

  3. Place the remaining butter in a stand mixer and beat for about five minutes until super pale and fluffy in colour. Set aside.

  4. Place your cooled pastry cream in the bowl of your stand mixer and beat with the whisk until light and airy (about 1 minute). Slowly incorporate, bit by bit the beaten butter (this will take up to 5 minutes).

  5. Beat for another 2 minutes until super light and airy and then add in the praline and mix until incorporated.

  6. Leave until needed in the fridge.



To assemble:

  1. Take your cooled mini choux and cut a criss-cross in the bottom of them with a knife to help make a piping bag pipe into them.

  2. Take your 2 tablespoons of praline in a piping bag and fill each mini choux with it.

  3. Cut each big choux in half with a bread knife. Cut the circle of big choux in half and don't worry if you break the circle, you can place them bag together after.

  4. Place your crème mousseline in a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe a little cream just to fill the bottom.

  5. Place a mini choux in each bottom of the big choux.

  6. Pipe around the mini choux to cover it.

  7. Top with the little hat and with a little dusting of icing sugar, your Paris-Brests are ready to be served!



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  • Check out the new Baking Glossary on the blog if you are unsure of any baking terms.

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Bye Xxx

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