Level: Difficult
Saint-Honoré is a French gateau originating from France. This dessert traditionally comprised of a flaky puff pastry base decorated with filled mini choux pastry buns and was invented in the year 1840 at Chiboust bakery on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris.
Saint Honoré is one of the first of many desserts that captivates me and the modern take to this delicate dessert is endless. In the near future post I can see myself making a different variations of this pastry.
In here, I will be sharing the all time favourite flavour combinations of almond praline mousseline with chocolate cremeaux and caramel, sprinkled with candied almonds. You would be crazy not to love this.
In the below recipe, some of the elements are required to be prepared ahead of time. In making the choux pastry, every oven is different so the instructions is just a guideline as you will need to test and trial your oven beforehand.
You can use store bought puff pastry for the base, but if you are interested to prepare your own, check out my post on "Basic Puff Pastry" in my blog and learn how to make them. You do need to however prepare the puff pastry at least a day ahead before you move on to making the rest of the elements from the recipe.
Before starting to make this dessert, ensure that the Caramel Chocolate Chantilly, puff pastry (if you are making your own) and Chocolate Cremeaux are prepared a day ahead.
The recipe below is enough to makes 20 x individual St Honoré
RECIPE
Choux Pastry & St Honré Base
Water 75 g
Full Cream Milk 75 g
Unsalted butter 75 g
Castor Sugar 5 g
Salt 5 g
Bread Flour 50 g
Plain Flour 50 g
Eggs (+-)150 g / (+-)3 eggs
Puff pastry Docked and cut in to 7 cm in diameter disc with a cutter (Roll to 3 mm in thickness)
Method:
1. Before starting this process, ensure that all the ingredients are weigh out ahead of time.
2. Combine water, cream, butter, sugar and salt in a pot and bring to a simmer. Remove the pot away from the heat and pour the flours into the hot liquid and stir with a wooden spoon until they come together and form a soft dough/panada.
3. Place the pot back over low heat and keep cooking while stirring with a wooden spoon for approximately 4 minutes to cook out any excess water. If you do not cook out the panada/choux mix enough at this stage, the panada may retain too much moisture and will have an irregular rise when being baked in the oven.
4. When the panada have cooked out, transfer the mix into a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until it has cool down to below 60°C.
5. When the panada have cooled down, gradually add in the whisked eggs a little at a time, adding the next portion of egg only when the previous ones have fully been incorporated into the dough. When half of the amount of the eggs in the recipe have been incorporated, check the consistency of the panada and keep checking after each addition and when they have been mixed through with the panada. You may not need all of the eggs required or may need to add more depending on how much the panada have been cooked out.
6. To check if the choux mix is ready, when you pick the choux mix up with a wooden spoon, it should gently and gradually slide off the spoon. If the mix stay on the wooden spoon, it means that more egg(s) need to be added. If the choux mix runs off the spoon too quickly, you have added too many eggs and there is nothing really you can do to fix it. So, make sure you check on every addition of egg once half the amount has been added.
7. When the choux mix is ready, transfer into a piping bag fitted with 15 mm plain pastry tip.
8. Pipe a ring of choux pastry around the edge on a puff pastry disc that has been previously docked.
9. Spray individual tart rings lightly with oil and put it around the St Honré base, dust the choux pastry with icing sugar and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 25 minutes until the choux pastry has puff up and turned golden brown in colour, open the oven door to release the steam, rotate the tray and bake further for another 5 minutes. When the pastries are ready, turn off the oven with the door slightly ajar and leave the pastry to dry out in the oven for another 5 minutes.
10. For the small choux buns, pipe choux pastry on to silicone mat to a size of approximately 1.5 cm in diameter, place the croustillant disc that is cut out slightly larger than the choux pastry an on top of the choux buns.
Ensuring that the croustillant has come to room temperature, place in the oven at 170°C for 23 minutes, let the steam out, rotate the tray and bake for a further 5 minutes. Leave the baked choux buns in a turned off oven with the door slightly ajar for a further 5 to 10 minutes to dry out.
Caramel Chocolate Chantilly
Cream 35% fat (1) 90 g
Callebaut GOLD Caramel Chocolate 110 g
Cream 35% (2) 170 g
Method:
1. Place cream (1) in to a pot over heat and bring to a simmer.
2. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stick blend until homogenized. Let the ganache cool to below 35°C then mix in Cream (2) and stick blend until well incorporated.
3. Wrap with cling film touching the surface and leave in fridge to cool overnight. The next day, place the Chantilly cream in to a stand mixer with a whisk attachment and whisk until it forms a thick and pipeable consistency.
4. Transfer into a piping back with a 15mm star piping tip.
Almond praline mousseline cream
Full cream milk 165 g
Sugar 45 g
Custard powder 15 g
Egg Yolks 30 g
Unsalted butter(1) 30 g
Unsalted butter (2) - softened 150 g
Almond praline paste 45 g
Method:
1. Heat cream and in the separate bowl whisk through sugar, custard powder and egg yolk together.
2. When cream is heated, gradually pour over the egg mix and while whisking. Transfer the mix back into the pot over low heat and keep cooking while whisking until it thickens and reaches 82°C. Make sure to constantly whisk the pastry cream so that the bottom does not catch and burn.
3. Once the pastry cream have thicken, transfer to a bowl and whisk in butter (1) and almond praline paste. Wrap with cling film touching the top to avoid skin from forming and let cool to below 35°C.
4. When the crème pâtissier have cooled down, transfer to a stand mixer with a whisk attachment and gradually incorporated the softened butter(s) until they are well homogenized and smooth. Transfer into a piping bag and keep in fridge until ready to use.
Chocolate Cremeux
Cream 150 g
Full Cream Milk 75 g
Castor sugar 25 g
Egg Yolk 20 g / 1 yolk
Dark Chocolate 54% 100 g
Method:
1. Combine cream and milk in a small pot and gently heat the mix.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the yolk and castor sugar. When the liquid is hot, gently pour the mix over the yolk mix while whisking to make and anglaise. Transfer the mix back to the pot over low heat and keep cooking while whisking until it reaches 82°C.
3. Pour the anglaise over the chocolate and stick blend until smooth. Wrap with cling film touching the surface and leave in fridge to cool and set aside until ready to use.
Caramel
Castor Sugar 100 g
Cream 35% Fat 50 g
Vanilla 1 vanilla bean
Unsalted butter 5 g
Salt 1g
Method:
1. In a clean pot, dry caramel castor sugar. Meanwhile warm up cream with the vanilla
in a bowl.
2. When sugar have come to an amber colour, deglaze by adding in the butter first, then the warm cream. Whisk the mix until well incorporated and cook to 103°C then whisk in the salt.
3. Set aside to cool then transfer into a piping bag and keep at room temperature until ready to use.
4. When it is ready to be use, slightly warm the caramel to pipeable consistency ensuring it is not too hot. Make sure if you are heating the caramel in the piping bag that the piping bag is microwavable safe.
Chocolate Croustillant
Unsalted butter 50 g
Light brown sugar 50 g
Cocoa Powder 25 g
Plain Flour 25 g
1. Soften the butter then mix in all the other ingredients until a paste is form.
2. In between two parchment paper, roll the croustillant to 3mm/0.3 cm thick and place in fridge to firm up.
3. Remove the croustillant from the fridge and cut in to disc slightly larger than the size of the choux bun and place on top of the choux and let it come to temperature before baking.
Candied Almonds
Water 15 g
Castor Sugar 30g
Almond nuts (skin on untoasted) 50 g
Method:
1. Combine water, sugar and almonds on to a non-stick pan over low heat.
2. Cook out the mix until the water starts to evaporate, gently stirring the nuts until they are toasted and well coated in the sugar mix. Once the liquid turns in to thick caramel and dark amber in colour, remove the nuts and spread on to a parchment paper and separate the nuts. Leave to cool.
Assembly
Pipe chocolate cremeaux to fill the Choux ring as well as the individual mini choux buns.
Then pipe the centre of the St. honoré base with the almond mousseline cream, then pipe in some soft caramel then top with more mousseline cream creating a blob in the centre for heights that will hold on to the mini choux buns.
Decorate the gaps with Caramel Chocolate Chantilly.
Chopped the candied almonds and place around the chantilly.
Serve on the same day.
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