Tarte Saint Honoré

Instructions

FIRST DAY

Make puff pastry.

1. To make this cake we will need about 200-250 g of puff pastry dough.
2. We proceed to prepare the homemade puff pastry, for it we follow the process of elaboration that I left you in this post. It is explained step by step and accompanied by a video.
3. If we prefer, we can use store-bought puff pastry (we will need 250 g dough) and, in this way, we will simplify the elaboration process a little.

Make craquelin.

1. In a bowl add the flour together with butter and sugar.
2. Mix with the help of a spatula until a homogeneous dough is obtained.
3. Place between two sheets of Teflon and stretch with an adjustable roller, give a thickness of 2 mm.
4. Store in the freezer for at least 1 hour.
5. Take out the craquelin from the freezer, cut with a cutter of 1,2 inch/3 cm of diameter and put again in the freezer until the moment of its use.

Make choux pastry.

1. Preheat the oven to 355ºF (180ºC).
2. Sift the flour, set aside.
3. In a saucepan, pour the water along with the milk, salt, sugar and butter. Place at medium heat and leave to boil.
4. Once the mixture has boiled, remove from the heat and stir in the flour. Remove with a spoon/spatula at a fast and continuous speed.
5. We'll get a ball of compact dough that we'll have to dry out. Replace at medium heat, stirring constantly.
6. We will notice that the dough clings to the base, in total we leave it 2 minutes without stopping stirring. The degree of drying of the dough will depend on the quantity of eggs that it admits, we see it next.
7. Transfer the dough to a large bowl and leave to cool lightly.
8. Add the first egg and stir until it is homogenized, so that the dough can also take air and then influence what the dough can raise during cooking.
9. Add the next egg and mix until completely combined. If the dough is too dry and does not have the right consistency, add a little more egg. In the notes I detail how to do it. The consistency should be as seen in the video and I'll explain in the notes.

Pipe and bake.

1. Prepare the pastry bag with a 0,4 inch/1 cm diameter smooth tipe.
2. Put the dough in a tray previously lined with baking paper, forming small piles of 1,2 inch.
3. Moist your fingertips and lower the dough peaks.
4. Place the craquelin discs on the choux paste and press gently.
5. Place in the oven at medium height.
6. After the first 15 minutes, let's observe that they are swelling up and we open the door of the oven so that the steam can escape for 3-4 seconds and we close them again leaving them 15-20 more minutes. They will take a golden color on the surface.
7. Once the baking time is over, turn off the oven and let it stand inside with the door ajar for 5-10 minutes.
8. Remove and let cool completely on a rack.
   

Bake puff pastry with paste choux.

1. Preheat the oven to 355ºF (180ºC).
2. Stretch the puff pastry and cut a disc of 8 inch/20 cm in diameter. Place on a perforated tray lined with baking paper.
3. Prick the surface with a fork.
4. Pipe a string of choux paste around the puff pastry leaving 0,2 inch/0.5 mm separated from the edge.
5. Create a spiral of choux pastry inside the puff pastry leaving a little space between the cords of dough.
6. Slightly moisten the choux dough and place in the oven at medium height.
7. Bake for 30 minutes.
8. Remove and let cool completely on a rack.
   

Make the pastry cream for the chiboust.

1. Fill a bowl with very cold water and submerge the gelatine. Let it hydrate for 10 minutes.
2. In a saucepan pour the milk, place at medium heat and leave until it comes to a gentle boil.
3. On the other hand, in a bowl whisk the yolks together with the sugar and the cornstarch Mix well with a whisk.
4. Once the milk has reached boiling point, pour a little (with the help of a strainer to prevent cream from seeping into the mixture of yolks).
5. Whisk well to temper them and prevent lumps from forming.
6. Pour the remaining milk and mix again.
7. Pour the mixture into the saucepan and place at medium heat while stirring. You will notice that the texture will become denser.
8. Cook until the cream has a creamy and slightly dense texture.
9. Remove from the heat and add the hydrated gelatine. Remember that we must drain the gelatine very well so that we do not incorporate any water.
10. Stir very well, and vigorously, with the whisk so that the gelatine dissolves and integrates completely.
11. Set aside while we prepare the Italian meringue.

Make Italian merengue.

1. In a medium saucepan pour the water together with the sugar and, without stirring, place at medium heat.
2. Leave until it reaches a temperature of 250ºF (121ºC), the ideal would be to help us with a digital thermometer.
3. While the syrup is cooking, whisk the egg whites together with the 45 g of sugar until obtaining a meringue that forms soft peaks.
4. Once it reaches 250ºF (121ºC)  remove from the heat and begin to integrate on the egg whites in a fine and continuous thread. We will do it at the same time that we beat the meringue to a medium speed. The final appearance will be a firm and very shiny meringue.

Prepare the chiboust.

1. In a large bowl trasnfer the pastry cream, which must be warm, together with the freshly made Italian meringue. This one will still be hot.
2. Add a small amount of meringue and mix with the help of a spatula. We will do it with soft and enveloping movements, never stirring or beating with a lot of energy. Otherwise the souflée will deflate.
3. Keep adding more meringue and smoothly integrating into the chiboust until we've integrated everything.
4. Set aside.

Put the chiboust in a pastry ring.

1. Prepare a board with a sheet of Teflon on top.
2. Place film on it and the pastry ring (mine is 9,45 inch/24 cm in diameter). Fold the ends of the film around the ring.
3. Pour the chiboust into the ring. Extend and smooth the surface with the help of a spatula.
4. Put it in the freezer until the next day.

Make pastry cream.

1. Here you can see how to prepare the pastry cream.
2. Once you have it ready, reserve it at room temperature until the moment of its use if you make the galettes the same day.
3. In case you make it one day in advance, once it has cooled completely, place in the fridge until the next day.

SECOND DAY

Make mascarpone cream.

• Cream must be cold 24 hours before used it.
• The bowl in which we are going to make whipped cream must be cold. I recommend to use one aluminium bowl and freeze 20 minutes before beat it.

1. Pour heavy cream along with mascarpone cheese into freeze bowl and beat with an electric mixer into low speed.
2. Once cream is becoming to form stiff peaks, add sugar little by little stirring the whole time. Increase speed gradually but without reaches high one. Ideally use medium speed.
3. Before finish to beat the cream, add vanilla extract and beat until get a perfect whipping cream. Be sure not to over-beat, otherwise cream will become lumpy and butter-like.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until used it.

Make the caramelo.

1. In a medium saucepan, add the sugar along with the water. Place at medium heat.
2. Let it begin to melt without stirring.
3. Once it begins to caramelize, stir often to prevent some areas from burning. Reduce the heat a little if necessary.
4. Remove the heat, sink the bottom of the saucepan in water to cut the cooking and proceed to bathe the puffs.

Cover the puffs with caramel.

1. Submerge the puff trying to cover the top with craquelin.
2. We will try to make the caramel layer as thin as possible.
3. Place the puff in a silicone mould and let it cool completely.
4. Repeat the same process with the rest of the pieces.

Assemble the cake.

1. Put the pastry cream in a piping with a filling tip.
2. Fill the puffs with the cream. Set aside.
3. Place the mascarpone cream in a piping bag with a 0,7 inch/18 mm Saint Honoré tip.
4. Pipe a little cream in the base.
5. Remove the chiboust from the freezer and place on top of the cream. Press lightly. In my case, as the ring was larger than the desired size in height, I had to cut the dimension I needed (7 inch/18 cm) before placing it on the cake.
6. Pipe the mascarpone cream by the surface of the chiboust.
7. Decorate the edges with puffs.
8. Place a puff in the central part of the cake. Decorate with edible gold.
9. Serve.
   

Notes

• I know making puff pastry at home can be a long process. If you dare to do it, phenomenal. Otherwise, you can always use a store-bought sheet of puff pastry.
• To decorate the cake we will need 14 puffs. With the quantity that I leave you in the elaboration you will be able to squish the base, the 14 units and a few more. In my case came 30 pieces more of a slightly larger size than the cake. You can fill them with chiboust, cream... And keep them refrigerated for 2-4 days, depending on the filling you have chosen.
• The amount of pastry cream I leave you is the right amount to fill the puffs of the cake. If you want to fill them all, you must make more.
  
• Puffs get bigger with craquelin on the surface. I piped some to which I did not place craquelin and grew much less in the oven. You can see the difference in size in the video (on the tray after baking).
• If you don't want to get leftovers chiboust, my family likes it a lot and they don't mind eating it as it is, you should reduce the amount of ingredients in half.
• Another option may be to use that surplus to fill the puffs instead of the pastry cream. Or fill the surplus puffs with it.
• You might wonder why I haven't used the 18 cm diameter ring directly. The reason is that I wanted to give the height that has the ring of 24 cm and I did not know if filling the ring of 18 cm, I was going to get the one I wanted.
• The top cream is made with mascarpone and cream. The final texture is very creamy and denser than if we do it only with cream. It also has a mild and wonderful taste. In case you don't like the cheese, you can omit it and decorate the surface only with whipped cream.
• There are many options for piping mascarpone cream. In my case I have shown you the most classic, I find it very elegant. But there is a great infinity of them, all wonderful, that you can carry out to decorate the cake.
• When we cover the puffs with caramel, be very careful not to burn yourselves. Typically, after bathing the caramel surface, they are placed upside down in a silpat or silicone mold with holes. In this way we achieve a perfectly rounded finish in the second or a flat finish in the first. My intention was to use a silicone mould that I have, but the profiteroles grew a little more than expected and did not fit ... I don't like the way they look with the flat surface, so I chose to do it as I show you in the video. I comment the two options so that you can keep them in mind and choose your choice.
• It can be kept refrigerated for 2-3 days.
  

Archivado en

• Breakfast
• Mascarpone cheese
• Meringue
• Pastry cream
• Puff pastry