Cooking custard dough.

Pour water into a saucepan, put salt, sugar and butter cut into pieces.

Place over medium heat and cook until butter melts. Remove from heat and stir in flour.

Return to the stove and cook, stirring constantly, until the dough rolls into a ball and a crust begins to form on the bottom, about 2-3 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, transfer the dough to a bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing with a spatula after each until smooth. If you are using a stand mixer, mix at the lowest speed. a conventional mixer with whisks is not suitable. Constantly monitor the consistency - the dough should not become too liquid. To be safe, it is better to beat the last egg with a fork and add in parts. The dough should be smooth and shiny.

We shift it into a pastry bag with a regular round nozzle with a diameter of 10-11 mm.

Cooking craquelin. To do this, grind the butter with flour and sugar to a soft dough.

We roll out the dough between two layers of parchment to a thickness of about 1.5-2 mm.

I put it in the freezer.

Cooking raspberry cream.

Beat the yolks with half the sugar and starch until the mass becomes light.

Rub the raspberries through a sieve. You should get about 200 g of puree. Add half the sugar and lemon juice to it, put on the stove and bring to a boil. We take it off the fire.

Whisking constantly with a whisk, pour the raspberry puree into the yolk mass. We return it back to the pan and put it on the fire again. On a small heat, stirring constantly, cook the cream until thickened.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with cling film so that it is in contact with the surface of the cream. Cool completely.

Cooking custard.

Beat the yolks with sugar until white.

Add flour and beat again. Bring the milk to a boil. Pour into the egg mixture in a thin stream, beating constantly. Pour into a clean saucepan and place over medium heat.

Cook, stirring constantly with a whisk, until the mixture thickens.

We remove the ladle from the fire. Add a couple of cubes butter stirring well after each addition. Then add vanilla essence and finely chopped chocolate and stir until it dissolves.

Transfer the cream to a bowl. Cover the surface with cling film and place in the refrigerator.

On a baking sheet covered with parchment or a silicone mat, we plant a shu with a diameter of about 3.5 cm.

We take out the rolled craquelin from the freezer. Let it lie down for a couple of minutes at room temperature, then cut out circles with a diameter slightly larger than the shu. We put a circle on each shu and press lightly.

We send it to the oven preheated to 180 degrees and bake until tender and golden brown, about 30-35 minutes.

Cool down. Cut off the top third of each bun. We fill the cakes first with raspberry cream.

And then custard.

Cover with cut lids.

Happy tea!

• Milk - 90 g
• Water - 90 g
• Butter - 75 g
• Flour - 125 g
• Eggs - 3 pcs
• nuts
• Salt and sugar

On the wave new fashion for eclairs and all sorts of variations of choux pastry, I suggest recalling another beautiful and simple dessert - the Paris-Brest cake, which, by the way, was invented in honor of the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race by confectioner Louis Durand and it resembles a bicycle wheel. The idea is that we quickly prepare the choux pastry, do not wait and immediately plant the future “bagels” in a special way, sprinkle with our favorite nuts. It takes up to 20 minutes to bake, a golden crust, the strongest appetizing aroma of the dough - this is just the beginning of what you have to fight to reach the end of cooking. In the meantime, cakes are baked, we make cream - custard, with coffee and chocolate. Everything is simple there, 5-7 minutes and the cream is ready! And here you have real works of art in your hands. Embossed custard dough, which is so thin and fragile that it seems like a thin shell, ruddy, with toasted nuts, which are excellently crunchy, giving texture. And inside there is an unimaginable amount of delicate cream that melts in your mouth, giving off its aromas of coffee, Belgian chocolate and the very texture of custards for which we are ready to worship them. Pari-Brest can be a tiny one-serving dessert, or it can be a large multi-tiered "cake" for the whole company. But the most amazing thing is that it is a real source of inspiration. It's hard to imagine in your head how many variations you can come up with. Already now I offer you several creams to choose from, and then it will be even more interesting, we will use craquelin, colored glazes and complicate the filling! Consider this just an introduction, so # Let'sCook!

Paris-Brest

Once in France, in 1891, the bicycle super marathon Paris - Brest - Paris started. 400 people took part in the cycling race, but less than 30 participants reached the finish line. In the same 1891, in honor of this bike race, the famous confectioner Louis Durand, who worked at that time for the Lafitte house, came up with the famous dessert - "Paris - Brest". Such cakes are baked from custard dough in the form of a bicycle wheel.

Combine in a saucepan combine water (90 g), milk (90 g, fat content 2-3%) and butter (75 g, fat content 82.5%). Place over medium heat and wait until the oil has completely melted into the liquid. Add a pinch of salt and sugar.

Then add all the flour (125 g), start actively mixing the future dough and return to the fire.

Stir until the dough rolls into a ball, and a thin crust (white, not burnt dough) appears on the walls and bottom of the stewpan.

Transfer to a mixing bowl and beat for a couple of minutes until the dough has cooled slightly. Then enter the eggs (3 pcs, one at a time). See that the eggs do not curl up, that is, you need to work with a mixer quickly, or let the dough become barely warm.

You should end up with a perfectly smooth and uniform mass of dough.

Transfer the dough to a bag. The nozzle is about 10 mm, the star is open, 6-8 rays. You can take another. Someone recommends letting the dough soak in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. But I'm just getting started with the test.

Draw round landmarks on the parchment paper. Next you need to plant THREE rings. One goes along the outline of your drawing. The second butt next. And the third lies on top of these two rings (a kind of pyramid). I have a diameter of the inner ring 6 cm, the outer one is about 8 cm. As a result, the cake will inflate to 10-11. Sprinkle any nuts on top. The classic speaks of almond petals but I wanted crushed peanuts.

We put in the oven, preheated to 170 degrees. Bake for 15-20 minutes (depending on size) until golden brown.

If something goes wrong for you, the first thing you pay attention to is parchment, you may have to try another one. The second is the amount of moisture in the dough. We take eggs, but not grams, so errors may occur. If the dough won't bake, rise, or another mistake upsets you, try decreasing or increasing the amount of moisture (eggs) in the dough, i.e. take them larger or smaller.

In any case, choux pastry and Pari-Brest are not the case where the recipe is complex or unbearable)

Coffee custard with chocolate

• Milk - 500 g
• Yolk - 5 pcs
• Sugar - 100 g
• Flour - 40 g
• Dark chocolate - 30 g

Our cream is also custard, like the dough itself. It is very convenient to work with such creams and they are excellent fillings for various types of cakes, the most popular and famous: eclairs, profiteroles, Shu and our Pari-Brest.

Milk (500 g) bring to a boil and add instant coffee, to your taste. Instead of instant, you can make 450 milk and 50 espresso. In general, this is your decision, you can do milk with a vanilla pod.

In a cup, whisk together the yolks (5 pcs) and sugar (100 g).

Carefully pour in some of the hot milk while continuing to stir the yolk mixture.

Add dark chocolate (30 g) to the remaining milk.

Pour the yolk-coffee mixture into the milk, stirring well.

Transfer to a cold bowl and cover with cling film. Refrigerate until fully stabilized (a couple of hours).

The recipe for this cake, familiar from childhood, is borrowed from the television program "Everything will be delicious", in which the chef Vincenzo Barba told all the secrets of making this dessert. (Link to video recording http://youtu.be/SiakAuYV89s ). This recipe is interesting, firstly, because the ingredients are very simple: custard cakes are prepared from what is always at hand. No need to use expensive or exotic products. And the result is great!

Well, kittens!? After a break from the holidays, it's time to take on desserts! Today we have an amazing French classic - Shu cakes with vanilla cream. Why do we love them so much? These donuts are completely empty inside and we can fill them with our favorite cream and cover it beautifully with a lid. In addition, we have an aesthetically pleasing colored crust that crunches pleasantly while we enjoy this vanilla cloud. Sometimes it seems that they are too beautiful and you definitely can’t eat them .. You have to!! And yes, there is a surprise inside.

As part of the "" project, we have already cooked with you, but today there will be a slightly different recipe and filling. Let's complicate things a little and talk about decors.

Craquelin

Let's start with craquelin - a crispy layer that plays two roles at once (oh, those cunning French). First, it's a real decoration. Agree, even if you don’t cut the Shu, but fill them with cream from the bottom, it will still be very beautiful, such a turtle structure, or something .. Plus, it’s still a crispy layer that will make our dessert more original and multifaceted - some pluses.

In a bowl, combine butter at room temperature (110 g) and sugar (110 g). We also add vanilla pod seeds there - the ingredient is not the most essential, but desirable.

Stir with a spatula into the paste and add the dye. Dry, gel - there is not much difference. I combined two - powdered purple and red gel, it came out well. Remember my ideology that two or three colors always play more interesting than one base color.

Get it like this. The color is slightly different from what is seen on the finished Shu - dry dyes are to blame for this, they always “reveal” later, in the oven.

Transferring to film.

We wrap it so that we get a thin bar of 1 cm. Put it in the refrigerator for 40-60 minutes.

After that, we divide the workpiece into 2-3 parts and roll each one between two sheets of parchment to a thickness of 2 mm. We put it in the freezer (until a decent hardening, you can leave it overnight and for a week).

Filling

And here is our surprise - a filling of cherry confit and sesame nugatin (also a crispy layer). To start, make cherry juice confit (250 g). I will not describe the steps here, they are well covered in and. We will deal with the second component.

In a saucepan, combine butter (13 g) and glucose syrup (5 g, you can use honey).

We warm up to a boil. In a separate cup, mix pectin (1 g) and sugar (15 g).

We combine the masses and pour in the fried sesame seeds (50 g, you can chopped seeds or nuts).

Spread in a thin layer on parchment.

Bake in the oven at 180 degrees until golden brown (10-15 minutes).

Let the mass cool slightly (not completely), and then cut with a cutter. You can cut out leaves, circles and other shapes. When the layer hardens, it will be solid and well suited for external decor. I used a round die cut with a diameter that was equal to the diameter of the silicone mold.

Cut out blanks. Cooled down, they are well separated from the common layer. They can be stored in an airtight container for a week.

We pour the cherry confit into the molds, and put our nougatin in half. Later we blind them into balls. Put in the freezer for 4-6 hours.

Choux pastry

Everything is simple here. By the way, eclairs and profiteroles and Shu are made from this dough. Just appearance And everyone's toppings are different. The finished dough keeps well in a bag for a couple of days.

We combine water (130 g), milk (160 g) and butter (120 g) in a saucepan. We introduce sugar and salt, 5 g each (teaspoon). Put on the stove and bring to a boil.

When the liquid boils, we introduce flour (160 g).

Return to heat and stir well with a whisk. Literally in 2-3 minutes you will get a homogeneous dough.

And a characteristic film will appear on the walls and bottom of the saucepan. After this moment, stir the mass for another minute or two.

Then transfer to the bowl of a mixer and beat at medium speed (preferably with a paddle attachment) until the dough has cooled to a state where it is warm to the touch.

After that, while continuing to beat, gradually introduce the eggs (220 g). You will get a glossy paste.

It should slowly drain from the nozzle.

Prepare a bag and a 10-15 mm round nozzle.

Transfer the dough to the bag.

Place 5 cm rounds on an inverted baking sheet lined with parchment. It is most convenient to put a stencil under the parchment. I made it for you - and print the required number of sheets.

We plant in a checkerboard pattern at a distance. This will help proper air circulation between the cakes, for the same we turned the baking sheet over so that the sides do not interfere with the flow of heat.

Take out the frozen craquelin and cut out 5 cm round blanks.

Cover each piece of choux pastry with a coin. It is important that they are thin (2-3 mm) and icy (to keep their original shape).

We put it in the oven (top and bottom, without convection), 175 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Look, when you put Shu in the oven, do not try to open the door, otherwise the cakes will fall. That is, we put a baking sheet and in next rah open the oven to get the cakes. Readiness is clear by the fact that the bottom of the cakes has become ruddy.

Of the possible problems:

1. Shu did not rise well - too thick a layer of craquelin
2. Shu burst a lot - a lot of moisture (which means fewer eggs need to be introduced into the dough), small cracks / explosions under the craquelin and from below are acceptable
3. The bottom of Shu turns out to be concave - bad parchment
4. Shu raw inside - taken out of the oven early

Of course, here you need to practice. You may need to redo the dough or reroll the craquelin. All pitfalls are hidden in parchment, careful baking (do not open the door) and the amount of moisture in the custard dough (number of eggs). Sometimes it is recommended to put the custard dough in a bag in the refrigerator overnight, this will allow gluten to develop in the dough (less likely that it will burst). A nice bonus - the top layer, craquelin, helps us avoid obvious flaws and extra cracks in the choux pastry.

Then we shift Shu to a cold surface and let it cool. Then cut off the lids. And when cut, each can be trimmed with a round cut. They can be stored empty for about a day in an airtight container, then they will become soft.

Let's get the stuffing. We take out the confit with and without nougatin in pairs and glue the halves together. I used glucose syrup, you can take honey. We work quickly so that the confit does not start to melt.

Ready-made balls are conveniently folded back into shape.

Next, fill Shu with cream halfway. We lower a ball of confit with nougatine into each. And then we fill "with a slide."

I made custard with whipped cream. Itself is in . Only the proportions are slightly different: milk (250 g), vanilla (2 pods) - bring to a boil. In a cup, we combine the yolks (60 g), sugar (60 g), starch (15 g, preferably corn) with a whisk. When the milk was gradually combined with the egg mixture and boiled, let the mass cool to 60 degrees and then add butter (100 g, a little soft, but still cool). We put it in the refrigerator for an hour.

Separately, whip the cream (200 g, 33%). And combine with the frozen custard.

We put it in a bag and work. Custard under the film is stored for a week.

Here are our beauties.

Since we have confit inside, you can’t serve cakes right away (it’s icy), let them stand on the table for at least 30 minutes. Then the guests will see such beauty.

As for the decor. We deliberately color the craquelin cherry, slightly hinting at the inner taste. If you replace the cherry in the confit with something else (mango, peaches, any berries, etc.), then the color of the craquelin can be changed, up to chocolate (then add cocoa instead of dye). Next, the remaining vanilla pods - they will set the dynamics and again tell us that we have cream with vanilla. Mint leaves are more for beauty and contrast of red and Green colour. Remember, we still have nugatin? We could carve it in advance in the form of leaves, petals, and so on, and we could also use it (on the lid or insert neatly into the side of the cream).