A simple St Honoré Recipe

Well, what can I say? Nothing is what. After spending so long in Paris head-wise it shouldn't be a surprise to see a Paris inspired bake pop up on the blog. I mean, when you don't get a chance to try one of these: 

Must Dos of Paris #ontheblog! 👉 ☆www.beckiexplorer.co.uk☆ 🗼💕

A photo posted by Becki Explorer (@theexplorerblog) on Jan 19, 2016 at 11:40am PST

it's obvious what the first thing you're going to bake when you get of the plane is going to be. 

In all honesty this is the first time I've really attempted any Patisserie style baking. Well, consciously at any rate. I wanted to keep it as simple as I could. Making a simple St Honoré was the way to go. As always it was a trial of ability and for a change I felt really quite proud of the attempt. Slightly wonky and cumbersome in places but hey ho, whatcha gonna do? 

Eat them. That's what. 

This recipe is fairly simple to do once you have the individual elements nailed, it's the kind of thing that you can bake in pieces and assemble later. You will need a good batch of Choux Pastry piped into balls and rings, a sheet of rough puff (which I have discovered I have no recipe for on the blog so I will post below), some Ganache, some warm caramel and some whipped cream. You can find the assembly instructions below if you fancy a go. 

There's a chance that these didn't taste as good as the ones in the patisserie. Having to bake them yourself have that effect - kind of like a chip that isn't yours tasting better than your own. But, these were a fabulous way to get a little bit of Paris at home. And they did taste pretty damn amazing, even if I do say so myself. 

*

Rough Puff recipe

Ingredients

250g plain flour

250g salted butter cubed

150ml cold water (you might not need all of it)

Method

Put the flour and butter in a large mixing bowl and gently rub some of the butter through the flour leaving some chunky bits.

Add your water to the mix a bit at a time, gently combine with your hands.Tip onto a lightly floured surface and bring into a ball. 

Roll out the pastry into a thin rectangle until it's about 1cm thick. Fold the two ends into the centre and then close as if it were a book. Turn the pastry 90° and repeat this process. Chill the dough then repeat the rolling out and book turning process and now chill in the fridge until you're ready to go. Use a circular cutter to cut disks and bake for roughly 15 minutes for this recipe.

*

Assembly

Fill all of your choux pastry rings and balls with some of your whipped cream. Take your baked rough puff disks and using the warm caramel stick the choux ring to the puff base. While that sets (it should take a matter of seconds) dip your choux balls in your ganache on one side. Allow this to set before sticking these on to the top of your choux ring using the caramel. The ganache needs to be pointing up. Once everything is set take your left over whipped cream and fill in the gaps. Top with a final choux ball....for decoration purposes, obviously.