French Classics Made Easy (49 page)

ECLAIRS:
An éclair is a 4½to 5-inch-long cream puff filled with either vanilla-, coffee-, or chocolate-flavored pastry cream and coated with a chocolate or coffee sugar icing. I coat them with the same sauce I use on profiteroles.

CAROLINES:
Carolines are shaped like small éclairs and are about 2 inches long. They are traditionally filled with either vanilla- or coffee-flavored pastry cream and then coated with chocolate or coffee sugar icing.

PARIS-BREST

This beautiful and delicious cream-puff pastry dessert is one of my favorites. It is a marvelous example of a masterpiece that is created from ordinary ingredients (though it is not a dessert for beginners).

The Paris-Brest is made by baking creampuff pastry in the form of a crown or wheel. The top of the crown is removed and the pastry is filled and decorated with a praline-flavored
crème St.-Honoré
(also called
crème Chiboust
).

To make the cream filling rise above the edges of the ring, without having to mound the ring with an excessive quantity of filling, here’s a little trick I learned as a student in Paris: Bake a few extra cream puffs at the same time as the ring. Cut the puffs into quarters and place them in the ring after filling halfway with the cream filling. Then pipe the filling over the supporting pieces to create a lovely dessert.

SERVES 6 TO 8

Butter and all-purpose flour, for baking sheet (optional)

Sweet Cream-Puff Pastry (
page 221
)

1 egg, beaten with a pinch of salt

¼ cup (25g) sliced almonds

4 egg whites

⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar

Praline Pastry Cream (
page 348
)

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

1.
Preheat the oven to 475°F with the rack in the middle position. Coat a nonstick or regular baking sheet with butter and flour, or line it with parchment paper.

2.
Fill a pastry bag fitted with an 11/16-inch (#9) plain tube with the cream-puff pastry. Use a pot lid 6 inches in diameter to draw the outline of a circle on the baking sheet with a pencil or toothpick. Squeeze 5 or 6 small cream puffs onto the baking sheet. Squeeze a ring of pastry about 1 inch wide just inside the circle you drew on the baking sheet (figure 1, facing page). Brush the ring lightly with the beaten egg and cover with the sliced almonds.

3.
Place the pastry in the oven for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 400°F and bake until medium brown all over, another 25 to 30 minutes. Allow the pastry to cool on a wire rack. Using a serrated knife, cut off the top one-third of the pastry and reserve. Cut the cream puffs into quarters.

4.
In a bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. (If you’ve made the pastry cream ahead of time, reheat gently at this point.) Pour the hot pastry cream into the egg whites and fold rapidly until smooth to produce a firm yet light, soufflé-like mixture. The filling should be firm enough to support a spatula in an upright position.

5.
To assemble: Spoon half of the pastry cream mixture into the bottom of the pastry ring and top with the cream-puff pieces so their rounded ends stand up to give added height. Fill a pastry
bag fitted with a ¼-inch (#2) or 5 16-inch (#3) star tube with the remaining pastry cream and decorate by squeezing ribbons of cream back and forth over the top, forming loops that hang over the sides of the pastry (figure 2, below).

6.
To serve: Replace the top of the pastry ring gently and sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar (figure 3, below). Using two long metal spatulas, gently lift the dessert onto a serving platter lined with a doily. When serving, hold the top ring in place as you cut through it with a serrated knife.

IN ADDITION

If you are eager to try this dessert, but are unsure of your ability, I suggest that you make the pastry in the form of cream puffs or éclairs. With their tops cut off and filled with the praline-flavored
crème St.-Honoré,
they will taste the same as the Paris-Brest but will be easier to make and can even be made without pastry bags and tubes.

M
AKING A
P
ARIS
-B
REST

1.
Squeeze five or six small cream puffs onto the baking sheet. Then squeeze a ring of pastry onto the baking sheet and bake.

2.
Pipe the remaining cream over the cream-puff pieces in the partially assembled Paris-Brest to form ribbons that overlap the edge of the pastry.

3.
Dust the assembled pastry with confectioners’ sugar.

ROUGH PUFF PASTRY

[PÂTE DEMI - FEUILLETÉE]

Puff pastry is often thought of as the most difficult of French pastry doughs. And, in fact, it is a long, drawn-out procedure that involves rolling and rerolling a flour and water dough with a block of butter to produce the more than one thousand individual layers of dough and butter that, when baked, rise to produce flaky layers of pastry.

In between all the rolling, the dough must rest to relax the elasticity built up while rolling. It is these resting times that make classic puff pastry so time consuming.

A second method, which makes what is called rapid, rough, or half-puff pastry, shortens the resting time considerably. The butter, instead of being kept completely separated between layers of dough, is interspaced in chunks throughout the dough. This creates much less elasticity. The dough, which looks very rough at first, can be rolled without resting and used shortly thereafter. The end results are so good that I rarely teach the classic version anymore.

If you have an ounce/gram scale, you can make this pastry in any quantity desired. Use equal weights of flour and butter, and the amount of water is half the weight of the flour. Use only a small amount of salt so the pastry can be used for savory as well as dessert recipes.

Because of the quantity of butter involved, working on a cold surface is important for success. If you don’t have a large plastic pastry board (about 16 x 20 inches) to chill, fill one or two large roasting pans with ice and place them on your countertop to chill it.

Using plastic wrap, as I do to initially form the pastry, alleviates the need to handle it with warm hands, and makes the beginning stages of making the pastry less sticky.

MAKES 2½ POUNDS

3 cups (450g) all-purpose flour (see Note)

1 teaspoon (5g) salt

1 cup cold water

1 pound (4 sticks; 450g) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes

1.
Place the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Place the salt, water, and butter in the well. Quickly and gently blend all of the ingredients together using your fingertips.

2.
As soon as all of the ingredients begin to stick together, transfer the contents of the bowl to a sheet of plastic wrap and, with your hands, form the mass into a rectangle about 7 x 10 inches. Wrap tightly in the plastic and run your rolling pin over the surface of the wrapped dough to make it tighter and more compact. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or freeze for 5 minutes. At this point, the dough will be very rough looking.

3.
Working on a cold, lightly floured surface, give the dough four “turns” as follows: Remove the plastic wrap and roll out the dough into a 8 x 20-inch rectangle with one short side facing you (figure 1, above). Fold in thirds as you would a letter (figure 2, above) and give it one-quarter turn to the right or left. You have now given the dough one “turn.” Repeat this rolling and turning process three more times. Keep the work surface, dough, and rolling pin lightly floured, but brush off any excess flour from the dough before folding.

4.
Rewrap the dough and refrigerate for 15 minutes (or longer). It can be used after these four “turns,” or it can be given two additional “turns” before use. The pastry will rise just as much with four “turns” as with six, but the layers after six “turns” will be thinner, making the finished pastry more tender.

5.
The pastry will keep for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator, or for several months in the freezer. It should be kept tightly wrapped in plastic wrap. If you think you will use less than the 2½ pounds of dough, mark the finished dough into five equal portions (figure 3, above). Each piece will be ½ pound of pastry. Cut off the amount you need for the recipe you are working on, and wrap and store the remainder.

P
ATE
D
EMI
-F
EUILLETEE
: Helpful Hints

1.
Roll out the dough into a 8 x 20-inch rectangle.