French · Dessert
Paris-Brest
- Advanced
- 75 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, toasted, nutty warmth throughout, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 125 ml water
- 125 ml whole milk
- 110 g unsalted butter, cubed
- 5 g fine salt
- 5 g caster sugar
- 140 g plain flour, sifted
- 250 g eggs, beaten (about 5)
- 30 g flaked almonds
- 500 ml whole milk, for the mousseline
- 100 g caster sugar, for the mousseline
- 4 egg yolks
- 45 g cornflour
- 200 g unsalted butter, softened to 20C (68F)
- 150 g hazelnut praline paste
- 10 g icing sugar, to dust
Equipment
Piping bag · Sheet pan
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Bring the water, 125 ml milk, 110 g butter, salt and sugar to a full boil, tip in the flour off the heat and beat to a smooth ball, then dry it over medium heat for 2 minutes until a film forms on the pan base. 2 min
- Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stop when the dough falls from the spatula in a slow heavy V and a piped ridge holds its shape: the last 30 g may not be needed.
- Pipe two 20 cm rings touching on a lined tray and a third on the seam, scatter the almonds, and bake at 180C (350F) for 45 minutes with the door shut, until deep gold and rigid. 45 min
- Whisk the yolks, 100 g sugar and cornflour, pour on the scalded 500 ml milk, return to the pan and boil hard for 1 minute while whisking, then spread thin, cover the surface and chill in the refrigerator until cold; bring it back to 20C (68F) over about 30 minutes just before you need it. 1 min
- Beat the softened butter into the smooth tempered pastry cream a spoonful at a time, beat in the praline, then pipe into the split ring and dust with icing sugar.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Salted water & the float test 188 recipes
- The water was salted before anything went in, and tasting it confirms it: seasoned on the tongue, with the salt dissolved rather than sitting on the pot floor.
- There is enough water, hot enough, that the pot returns to its boil quickly after the food goes in and never stops moving.
- Where the dish uses the float as its signal, the signal is obeyed: the pieces rise and they come out then, not several minutes later once something else was finished.
- Nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot or welded to itself, and the water has not thickened into a cloudy sludge.
- Drained on a bite rather than on the clock: resistance at the centre, with no chalky raw core.
Where it goes wrong The pot was too small and the water unsalted, so it never recovered its boil: the food sat in slack water, went gummy at the surface, and comes out bland in a way that no sauce afterwards can fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
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- Also Right
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- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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