Paris-Brest

I’ve been looking for months for THE recipe for Paris-Brest. And by “THE”, I mean the one I like! Because there are as many Paris-Brest as there are cooks who prepare them. I tried several versions and so far none of them pleased me. So I made the sacrifice of tasting lots of Paris-Brest to figure out what I wanted. And then, bingo! I understood what I wanted. All that remained was to compose the recipe of my dreams. So I did everything the way I felt (without a book) and wrote down the proportions I used as I went along. So I’m giving you the recipe for my rich and creamy Paris-Brest cream without delay.

The recipe I give you here is only the reflection of what I had in mind. You are free to change what you want. I know, for example, that this recipe will not please my father (who, since retirement, has been making a lot of cakes…) who will prefer a praline chantilly, made just before filling the choux pastry rounds. My version is much richer. It is in fact a mousseline cream (buttercream + pastry cream) but in proportions that I like. I make my buttercream custard, that is, with a smooth custard (not the usual one) and without Italian meringue. The result is a wonderful cream that holds together perfectly. You can have fun producing the “designs” you want with the piping bag. Don’t forget to prepare the choux pastry rounds the day before, so that they will stale. You can also prepare the pastry cream and the praline buttercream the day before and assemble them the same day.

Recipe for my Paris-Brest (for 9 individual pieces):

Choux pastry:

-125ml of water

-125ml of milk

-250ml of eggs (you need a volume for the choux pastry to succeed! that’s about 5 eggs)

-140g of flour

-110g of butter

-5g of sugar

-5g of salt

-crushed peeled hazelnuts

Paris-Brest cream:

1 -235g of homemade praline (60% almonds and 40% sugar)

2 -225g of Barry praline (50-50)

3 -500g of custard made with:

500ml of semi-skimmed milk
50g of soft butter
50g of cream powder
100g of egg yolk
125g of sugar
2 vanilla beans

4 -French butter cream:

500g of butter
100g of whole milk
80g of egg yolks
100g of sugar

Prepare the choux for the Paris-Brest the day before. This will make them stale a bit and make them easier to cut. It’s even essential!

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Put milk, water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan.

Bring to a boil over low heat.

Add the flour all at once off the heat.

Stir well (even quite briskly!!) then put back on low heat for 1 minute to dry out the dough. It is necessary to mix constantly. The dough will come off the bottom of the pan.

Pour the dough into a bowl.

Add the 250ml of beaten eggs little by little to the dough. mix well before adding the remaining eggs.

Stir vigorously to blend. This step can be done in a food processor such as Kitchenaid or Kenwood equipped with the sheet.

Here are the sockets I used for the recipe.

Prepare baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Draw 7 or 8 cm circles.

Fill a pastry bag with a 16 mm fluted tip and draw circles of pastry.

Sprinkle with crushed hazelnuts.

Bake for 20 minutes at 200°C, keeping an eye on the cooking time. Then let cool on a rack overnight. If you don’t let them get a little stale, they will be impossible to cut!

Similarly, you can prepare the praline buttercream and the pastry cream the day before the recipe and let them rest overnight in the refrigerator before assembling them.

Here is a reminder of the flan powder (or cream powder). You can find it at G.Detou, on the internet or at the supermarket. Just use the pastry cream mix. See the “Flan Parisien” recipe

Prepare the pastry cream by mixing the yolks, vanillin from the vanilla pods, the cream powder and half the sugar.

Heat the milk with the other half of the milk, the butter and the emptied vanilla pods.

Bring to a boil over low heat.

Pour the hot milk over the egg yolk mixture, mix well and return to the pan. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Pour the custard into a dish, then place a piece of cling film directly on top to prevent a skin from forming. Let cool to room temperature, then store in a cool place overnight.

Prepare the homemade praline (recipe HERE), taking care to set aside about 50 caramelized almonds in an airtight box. Mix the remaining almonds to obtain a praline paste (not too smooth!).

Prepare the buttercream custard. Blanch by mixing the yolks and half the sugar briskly.

Pour the heated milk with the remaining sugar over the yolk-sugar mixture.

Return to the pan and whisk until 86°C.

Pour the custard into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.

Cool until completely chilled, whisking at medium speed. This will take 10 minutes.

The result is a very airy and smooth custard!

Clean the bowl and put in the room temperature butter instead. Whisk for 5 minutes to aerate the butter.

Pour in the cooled custard at once and at the same temperature as the butter! Just check with a thermometer.

Let the processor whip until the cream and butter are completely incorporated. The result is a perfect custardy buttercream!

Add the homemade praline paste and the Barry praline.

Why both? Because the Barry praline has a very particular taste really delicious. You can also put only “home-made” praline (in this case, 460g in all)… But the mixture of the two is sublime! Here we see on the left, the barry praline and on the right my home made praline.

Whip until you have a homogeneous cream.

At this point, you can either store the cream (filmed on contact) until the next day (like the pastry cream and the baked choux) or continue… But in this case it is necessary to let the cream cool in the fridge for at least two hours.

Place the praline buttercream back into the mixer bowl. It is at this moment quite cold and frozen. Put the sheet (the K of the Kitchenaid or Kenwood) in the processor. Simply whip the cream until it whitens and aerates.