One of the best thing to make when you have got some puff pastry at hands is jésuites. This pastry is named after the shape of the Jesuit hat. Originated from France, this almond frangipane filled flaky pastry is one of my favorited treat to make.
Making this pastries does involve some technicality. You can use store bought puff pastry, it is no problem at all, but if you want to take up the challenge and muscle work to make your own puff pastry, go to the "Home Made Puff Pastry" post in my blogs to find out how to make them!
RECIPE
Recipes below make 6 x Jésuites
Full cream milk 200 g
Vanilla bean 1 pod/ 1 teaspoon paste
Custard powder 20 g
Egg Yolks 40 g / 2 yolks
Castor Sugar 100 g
1. Start by heating up the milk and vanilla paste in a pot.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk in the yolks, castor sugar and custard powder until well combined.
3. When the cream starts to let out steam, gradually pour the warm cream on the to yolk mix while whisking. Pour in all of the cream and whisk until there are no lumps.
4. Transfer the liquid custard back to the pot and over low heat, whisk the mixture until it thickens. Do not leave the pot unattended at this point to avoid the risk of the custard catching at the bottom and burn.
5. Transfer the cooked custard on to a bowl, wrap with cling fil touching the curd and leave in the fridge to cool.
Almond Frangipane
Crème Pâtissière Above recipe
Almondmeal 50 g
Unsalted butter 50 g
Castor Sugar 50 g
Eggs 1 egg
1. Soften the butter with the sugar with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add in the almond meal, then the eggs and the cooled pastry cream and mix until well combined.
2. Transfer the frangipane in to a piping bag.
Preparation
1. If you have a sheet of puff pastry, you'd want to have two sheets with the same length and width. One of the sheet you will be piping the almond frangipane in triangles leaving approximately 3 cm gap in between the triangles, and the other sheet of puff pastry will go over the top creating a triangle parcel after cutting them in to its individual sizes. When you pipe the frangipane, to ensure you do not waste too much of the pastry, make sure you pipe an opposite triangles next to one another as shown in the picture.
2. I find that rolling the puff pastry sheets in to rectangles makes the job much easier. I am using the 250 g Homemade Puff Pastry (refer to the Homemade Puff Pastry site for instructions), and divided the laminated dough in two halves and rolling each of them to 0.5cm in thickness x 45 cm in length x 18 cm in width.
3. Dock holes with a fork or better yet if you have a dough docker, this will ensure that the puff pastry rise evenly.
4. Before placing the top sheet of puff pastry over the ones filled with frangipane, make sure you brush egg wash around all the edges and between the fillings, this is ensure that the two sheets of puff pastry adhere to one another.
5. Egg wash the top of the pastry, sprinkle with almond flakes and bake it in a preheated fan forced oven at 200°C for 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 180°C for a further 15 - 20 minutes or until the pastry are nice and golden.
6. Meanwhile, prepare the sugar syrup for glazing the pastry. It is best to glaze the pastry straight out of the oven.
7. When the pastry is ready, glaze the top of the puff pastry with sugar syrup and dust with snow sugar. If you can't find snow sugar, icing sugar is fine but it will dissolve after a while. Dust with icing sugar only before you serve the jésuites.
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