THE PERFECT GÂTEAU PARIS-BREST

Transcription

1 THE PERFECT GÂTEAU PARIS-BREST Serves 10 to 12. By Dennis W. Viau; modified from several recipes. Gâteau Paris-Brest is supposed to represent a bicycle wheel, celebrating the bicycle race from Paris, France to Brest in Brittany. When I set out to make this confection the choux pastry dough (pâte à choux) was supposed to be easy. Many of my cookbooks tell aspiring bakers to start with pâte à choux because it is fool proof. I tossed 14 pastry rings in the trash, wasting more than 60 eggs and an untold amount of flour and butter, before coming up with the perfect formula and method for this pastry ring. This is easily the most complicated recipe I ever attempted. The directions fill two pages! But the end result was a perfect Gâteau Paris Brest. Techniques learned: 1. Making pâte à choux. Ingredients: For the Praline Candy: 1 tablespoon baking soda 6 ounces (170g) hazelnuts, divided (some will be used for the pastry ring) ½ cup (125g) granulated sugar ¼ cup (60ml) water 1 teaspoon lemon juice ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vegetable oil For the Pastry Cream Filling: 2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin ¼ cup (60ml) water 1½ cup (355ml) half-and-half 5 large egg yolks 1 (see Notes at end) 1/3 cup (66g) granulated sugar 1½ tablespoons corn starch 3 tablespoons unsalted butter; chilled and cut into pieces 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup (237ml) heavy cream; chilled For the Choux Pastry Dough: 7/8 cup (205ml) water 4 ounces (113g) unsalted butter (regular butter is okay) 2 ; cut into pieces 2 tablespoons granulated sugar ½ teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter) 2 5 ounces (142g) bread flour 4 large eggs 2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts (from the hazelnuts that were skinned and roasted earlier) For Garnish: Confectioners (powdered) sugar

2 Directions: For the Praline Candy: Heat your oven to 350 F (175 C). If you bought peeled hazelnuts you can skip this step. Heat 3 cups water in a medium saucepan to a boil. Add the baking soda (it will foam up) and the hazelnuts. Return to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Simmer 3 minutes. Meanwhile, set up a bowl with cold water. Add a few ice cubes. Drain the hazelnuts and place in the cold water. Allow to cool. With your fingers (it s easier using small pieces of paper towel) rub off the skins and discard. Meanwhile, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place on a wire cooling rack. Place the hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Set aside about a third of the hazelnuts to be used for the pastry rings. Bring sugar, water, and lemon juice to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and boil the syrup, without stirring, until the temperature reaches the hard-crack stage of 310 F (150 C), 10 to 15 minutes. Add the hazelnuts and immediately pour the contents onto the lined baking sheet. Allow to cool thoroughly. When cooked, break the candy into small pieces and place in a food processor fitted with a chopping blade. Process until finely chopped, about 30 seconds. Add the salt and vegetable oil and continue processing to a paste, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside. For the Pastry Cream Filling: Sprinkle the gelatin onto the water and set aside to soften. Meanwhile, heat the half-and-half in a medium saucepan over medium heat just until it comes up to a simmer. While the milk is heating, whisk together the yolks and sugar until combined. Add the corn starch and combine. Remove the half-andhalf from the heat and slowly pour about ½ cup into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly, to temper the yolks. Then pour the yolk mixture into the pan, whisking constantly. Set a larger pan on the stove (one into which the medium saucepan will loosely fit) with enough water in the bottom such that the medium saucepan will just come into contact with the water when fitted inside. Heat the water to boiling. Reduce the heat to medium-low, place the smaller pan in the larger one (thus assembling a double boiler) and stir the yolk mixture while it cooks over the simmering water. Don t let the water boil up into the smaller pan. It if boils up, reduce the heat to low. Cook the custard, stirring constantly, until well thickened, about 8 minutes. (It will thicken quickly as soon as the temperature rises enough to set the corn starch, but continue cooking the entire 8 minutes. It will thicken considerably.) Remove the saucepan from the double-boiler and whisk in the butter, vanilla, and softened gelatin until thoroughly combined to make a custard. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer over a large bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface of the custard and chill 45 minutes in the refrigerator. Using a stand mixer fitted with a whisk, whip the cream at medium-low speed until it forms a foam, about 1 minute. Increase speed gradually to high and whip until soft peaks form, 1 to 3 minutes. Break up the praline paste well with a whisk so that there are no lumps. Add half to the cream and whip until combined, making sure there are no lumps. (The lumps would block the piping tip in a later step.) Gently fold the whipped cream into the remaining praline paste and incorporate until smooth. Cover and refrigerate several hours, preferably overnight. For the Choux Pastry Dough: Draw an 8-inch circle on a sheet of parchment paper large enough to fit a baking sheet (12x17 inches/30x43 cm). Spray the baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray and apply the parchment paper to the baking sheet with the drawn circle on the underside. On two similar-sized parchment sheets draw two circles, one inside the other, 9 inches (23cm) and 7 inches (18cm). Place on sprayed baking sheets. 2

3 Beat eggs well in a small bowl or large cup and remove ¼ cup (60ml) of egg and set aside, covered with plastic wrap, to make an egg wash later. Heat oven to 400 F (200 C). Heat the water, sugar, salt (if using), and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the butter is fully melted and the liquid comes to a rapid boil. Add the flour, all at once, and immediately stir with a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula, breaking up the lumps. Reduce heat to low and cook 3 to 4 minutes, turning and stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and transfer to a mixer bowl on a stand mixer fitted with a paddle. Mix at medium speed for 30 seconds to 1 minute to slightly cool. Add the beaten egg, about ¼ cup (60ml) at a time, and mix into the pastry batter thoroughly before adding more egg. When all the eggs are incorporated, scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula and mix again for another 30 seconds. Continue mixing until the dough sticks to the sides of the bowl and strings form between the bowl and the beater blade. The batter should be thick and form stiff peaks, but it should be soft enough to push through a piping bag fitted with a large tip. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a coupling and a ½-wide circular tip 3 (see notes at end). Pipe a bead, about ½ inch (12mm) wide directly on top of the 8-inch (20cm) circle. Bake at 400 F (200 C) for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack. Switch to a ½-inch (12mm) star tip and pipe a thin bead of pastry dough around the center between the two drawn circles on each of the two baking sheets. Alternating between the outer circle and the inner circle, pipe a bead of dough from on top of the line inward onto the center bead. If you find it easier, you can pipe a zigzag pattern, back and forth across the center bead. Mix a teaspoon or two of milk into the egg that was set aside earlier. Brush both pastry rings generously with egg wash. Chop the remaining hazelnuts in a food processor or blender until reduced to a texture similar to bread crumbs. Sprinkle generously on top of one of the pastry rings. This ring will be the top of the Gâteau Paris-Brest. Bake both rings at 400 F (200 C) for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 F (165 C) and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Turn off the oven and open the door a little (use a wooden spoon, if necessary, to keep the door slightly open). Allow the pastry to cool thoroughly in the oven. Carefully cut away part of the top of the lower ring (the one without the hazelnut topping) and remove. Turn the other ring upside down and carefully cut away part of the bottom, then invert again with the hazelnuts on top. Place the pastry cream in a piping bag fitted with the ½-inch (12mm) star tip. Working back and forth in a zigzag pattern, pipe pastry cream onto the inside of the bottom ring, extending the cream a little over the outside and inside edges of the pastry. Place the thin ring (baked earlier) onto the cream, carefully pressing it gently into the cream. Pipe another zigzag bead of cream on top of the ring. Carefully press the top pastry ring onto the cream. Finish by spooning some confectioners (powdered) sugar into a wire-mesh sieve and dust the top of the pastry with sugar. Refrigerate until ready to serve. (Note: The pastry cream s texture is held partly by the chilled gelatin. As the cream warms, it will slightly liquefy; therefore, keep chilled until ready to serve and store the leftovers in the refrigerator.) The Step By Step guide begins on the following page. 3

4 1 STEP-BY-STEP 4 Here is my mise en place for the praline. I could not find skinned hazelnuts; therefore, I will need to remove the skins. This can be tedious, but I found a method that is credited to Julia Child. See below. Although the praline requires only 1 cup (125g) of hazelnuts, I m going to peel them all (I had about 6 ounces (170g)) because I will need additional hazelnuts for garnish when I prepare the pastry rings. 2 Boil about 3 of water and add the baking soda. Use a large pan as this combination will foam a lot. Add the hazelnuts and let them simmer in the liquid for a few minutes. Prepare a bowl with cold water. You can add a few ice cubes to the water.

5 3 5 Drain the hazelnuts and immerse them in the cold water. They will cool quickly. 4 Using paper towel, or your fingers, rub the skin off each of the hazelnuts. It comes off easily. I did need to use more than a few changes of paper towels before I finished skinning all the hazelnuts.

6 5 6 Place the skinned hazelnuts on a baking sheet (I m using my quarter sheet here) and roast in a 350 F (175 C) oven for 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. Set aside about a third of these hazelnuts to be used later when garnishing the pastry ring before baking. 6 This step is difficult to show in photographs. Boil the sugar and water together to make a simple syrup. Also add the lemon juice. Let boil, watching it closely, until the water starts to evaporate and the temperature rises. I strongly recommend a candy thermometer or good digital thermometer for this step. Cook until the temperature rises to the hard-crack stage, which is 310 F (150 C). Working quickly, add the roasted hazelnuts and immediately pour onto a baking sheet that has been prepared with some parchment paper.

7 7 7 This sticky liquid is very hot, so be careful, and keep pets and children away from the stove. I folded up the sides of the parchment paper to contain the liquid candy. Allow this cool thoroughly, preferably on a cooling rack. 8 When the candy is cool, break it up into small pieces to make it easier to process in a food processor or blender. Here I am also showing the extra hazelnuts I set aside for the pastry rings I ll make later.

8 9 8 Chop the candy well in a food processor or blender. It should be reduced to a fairly fine texture. Add the oil and salt and continue to process 1 to 2 minutes longer. It will form a paste, but not as smooth as peanut butter. The praline is done. Cover and set aside until needed. 10 This is the mise en place for the pastry cream filling. It is a combination of egg custard and whipped cream, stabilized with unflavored gelatin. I am using 1½ tablespoons of corn starch. Some recipes call for flour, in which case you would use 3 tablespoons of flour. (Corn starch has twice the thickening power of flour.)

9 11 9 Start by sprinkling the unflavored gelatin onto the water. Let sit until needed. 12 Separate the eggs. The egg whites can be saved to make French cookies called Cats Tongues. There is a recipe on my web site. Combine the 5 egg yolks with the sugar and whisk until smooth. Then add the corn starch and whisk again until the starch is thoroughly incorporated.

10 13 10 Heat the half-and-half in a small saucepan until it just begins to simmer and then remove from the heat. To temper the egg yolks, slowly pour about half of the heated milk into the yolks while you whisk the yolks constantly. 14 With the yolks tempered, you can then steadily pour them into the heat milk while you whisk constantly to blend the two liquids.

11 15 11 Set up a double boiler by heating a larger pan with a small amount of water in it. There should be just enough water to touch the inner pan when it is rested inside. Too much water will boil over, spoiling the custard. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low, and insert the smaller pan. 16 Stir constantly while the custard cooks over the simmering water, for 8 minutes. Normally, corn starch breaks down, losing its thickening power, as it boils. By cooking with a double boiler you protect the corn starch. You also protect the eggs from cooking too much, ending up with scrambled eggs. The custard will start to thicken quickly, but keep going. It will be much thicker after cooking. To finish, remove from the heat and blend in the butter, vanilla, and the softened gelatin.

12 17 12 One recipe I looked at said to strain the custard into a large bowl. That recipe did not use a doubleboiler and I suspect some of the egg yolks scrambled a little. I didn t have this problem, but I strained the custard nonetheless. There were no lumps in the strainer. 18 Here is my strained custard, ready to be made into pastry cream filling. This custard needs to be chilled in the refrigerator for 45 minutes until cool.

13 19 13 To protect the custard from forming a skin while it cools, you can cut a piece of parchment paper to fit on the surface, or press some plastic wrap onto the surface. 20 When the custard is cool, start whipping the heavy cream. Start at medium speed and whip with a whisk until frothy, then steadily increase the speed, whipping the cream to soft peaks.

14 21 14 Here is the cream, whipped to soft peaks. 22 Whisk the praline paste and half the whipped cream together. Make sure to break up any lumps in the praline, as lumps would clog your piping tip later. Then gently fold in the remaining cream and combine just until fully incorporated. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours, preferably overnight. The praline pastry cream is done.

15 23 15 This is my mise en place for the pastry, which is where I experienced all the difficulty. There are a lot of recipes for pâte à choux out there, and they vary a lot. When making small cream puffs or éclairs, the formula doesn t matter that much because the end result almost always turns out well. But when making pastry rings, which have a lot of weight, it s important to have a stiff outer shell (something I like to think of as an exoskeleton) to prevent the pastry from collapsing under its own weight. I made 14 of these before I found a method that worked. Still not satisfied, I came up with a method for the perfect Gâteau Paris-Brest. One point of curiosity: One recipe said to cut the butter into 12 pieces. Why 12? I cut mine into small chunks and I think I had 16. You want small pieces so that they ll melt quickly in a later step. 24 This pastry is supposed to represent a bicycle wheel (commemorating the bicycle race from Paris to Brest in France). Therefore, there is an inner ring that represents the inner tube. For this ring, draw a circle 8 inches (20cm) in diameter on one side of piece of parchment paper. Turn the paper over and press it to a sheet that has been lightly coated with cooking spray (which will hold the sheet in place).

16 25 16 Trace two more rings on two more parchment pieces, one inside the other, at 9 inches (23cm) and 7 inches (18cm) in diameter. Most Paris-Brest pastries are made my piping one thick ring and then carefully slicing it in half. I made two separate rings and then trimmed them to be my bicycle tire. 26 You ll need to set up a piping bag, or two. If you have one that you like, use it. I ve tried all the above and I prefer the one in the middle (the small coupler without a tip) for piping the thinner ring and the one on the right (star tip with blue tape holding it to a plastic bag) best. The large coupler (at left) was too clumsy to work with. Rather than using piping bags, I prefer Alton Brown s (Good Eats) method best. I cut off the corner of a ziplock bag and push the coupler or tip through the hole. Then use the lock ring to fasten the bag to the coupler or use tape (blue in the example above) to fasten the plastic around the tip (the method I prefer most).

17 27 17 To start the pastry, heat the water with the sugar, salt (if using), and butter to boiling. You want it at a good rolling boil because this will help disperse the butter. 28 Dump in the flour, all at once, and stir, stir, stir briskly to break up the flour. Reduce the heat to low and cook the flour, turning and stirring the whole time, for about 3 minutes.

18 29 18 Transfer the cooked flour to a mixing bowl. Attach the paddle to the mixer and beat the flour mixture for about 30 seconds on medium speed to cool it a little. Break the 4 eggs into a bowl or cup, mix well with a fork, and take out about ¼ cup (60ml) of the egg and set aside for making an egg wash later. With the mixer running, pour a little of the egg (about ¼ cup (60ml) at a time) and mix until it is thoroughly incorporated before adding more egg. 30 The mixture will start off crumbly, but as the eggs incorporate the batter will stick to the sides of the bowl and you ll even see some strings forming between the beater and the bowl as the mixer blade moves around the dough. It should come be at stiff peaks, almost too stiff to push through a piping tip.

19 31 19 I used a small piping coupler without a tip to shape this ring by piping a bead of dough directly onto the line of the 8-inch (20 cm) circle. Bake at 400 F (200 C) for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and set aside to cool. This will represent the bicycle tire s inner tube. 32 Next I used the two sheets that each had two circles on them. I started by using the star tip to pipe a thin bead (by holding the tip close to the paper) around the center of the circle, between the two lines. Then working back and forth between the outer circle and the inner circle, I piped a bead of pastry from the line and onto the flat bead of dough running around the center. If it s easier, you could simple pipe a zigzag patter back and forth between the two lines.

20 33 20 Here is a close-up of the piping pattern I used for the two larger rings. 34 As mentioned earlier, I set aside some of the skinned and roasted hazelnuts. I chopped these up in a food processor until they were the consistency of bread crumbs. I also added about a teaspoon or two of milk to the ¼ cup (60ml) of egg I set aside, mixing it to make an egg wash.

21 35 21 I brushed both rings generously with egg wash. One of them will be the bottom base of the cake. The other will be the top. So I sprinkled the chopped hazelnuts onto the top ring. The ring were baked at 400 F (200 C) for 30 minutes. Then I lowered the oven temperature to 325 F (160 C) and baked them an additional 30 minutes to dry them out and make the shell more crisp. Turn off the oven, open the door slightly (if necessary, use the handle of a wooden spoon to hold it open, and let pastry cool in the oven. The extra blobs of pastry on the sheet to the left was leftover pastry dough in the bag. When I was testing my early formulas I would also pipe some dough shapes that would be appropriate for cream puffs, just to see how they would turn out. In a later recipe I will make two types of cream puffs, one sweet and one savory. 36 To prepare my cooled rings for the pastry cream, I trimmed away the top of the bottom ring. The upper ring was inverted and I trimmed away its underside. In both cases I removed less than half the pastry of each ring.

22 37 22 Arrange the lower ring on a tray or platter, with the open face upward. Spoon the pastry cream filling made earlier into a piping bag fitted with a ½-inch (22cm) star tip. 38 Working back and forth, pipe a zigzag stream of pastry cream onto the shell, filling the depression in ring. Then place the thin ring (the inner tube) you baked earlier onto the center of the ring, carefully pressing it a little into the cream.

23 39 23 I missed taking the photograph of the inner ring in place; so the picture above was captured from the video. It shows the placement of the inner ring on the first layer of pastry cream filling. 40 Now pipe a second zigzag stream of pastry cream onto the ring, encasing the small, thin pastry ring.

24 41 24 Invert the upper pastry ring again so that its hazelnut garnish is on top and gently press onto the ring of pastry cream. 42 To finish, spoon some confectioners (powdered) sugar into a small sieve and sift some sugar on top of the cake. This is ready to serve. If not to be served immediately, refrigerate to prevent the pastry cream from melting (it s made with gelatin). Leftover pastry should be refrigerated.

25 Conclusion This is the most complicated dessert I have ever attempted. The presentation value alone was worth all the effort. The delicious flavor of this Paris-Brest, which tastes mostly of the hazelnut praline pastry cream, makes the effort even more worthwhile. I presented this as a gift to some friends and they enjoyed it immensely. Notes 1 Save the egg whites for making Cats Tongues, a delicious French cookie. The recipe can be found in the Recipe Archive, in Desserts, on my web site ( 2 Many bakers prefer to use unsalted butter and then add a controlled amount of salt to the ingredients, as there is no way to know how much salt creameries add to their regular butter. The pastry in this confection is not the primary source of flavor; therefore, feel free to use regular butter and leave out the ½ teaspoon of salt. 3 Although I have three piping bags (which are a nuisance to clean), I prefer Alton Brown s method: Use ziplock bags. Cut off a corner, making a whole slightly smaller than the plastic coupler. Push the coupler through the hole, attach the tip, and secure with the locking ring. If you have tips but no couplers, you can cut a whole about the same size as the smaller end of the tip. Push the tip through the whole and then secure with a small piece of fabric tape or masking tape. See the illustration in Step 26 above. 25