I recently bought Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard, and I immediately wanted to start baking everything in the book. Days later, I stumbled on the group Chocolate with Francois, and joined on the spot. We're a very small group and we post once a month, which is doable even with all my other activities.
The first recipe I made after joining the group is the Chocolate Paris-Brest. The Paris-Brest actually got its name from a famous bike race in France. The racers go from, you guessed it, Paris to Brest and back to Paris. It is a round pastry made of choux (a flour/water/butter mixture that is boiled and then enriched by the addition of eggs.) The ring of choux is filled with pastry cream (in our case, chocolate pastry cream.)
Um, not here. My choux ring looked magnificently puffy when I pulled it out of the oven and fell faster than you can say "sacre bleu!" I guess appearances were deceiving; it wasn't as done as it looked. Fortunately, I made a couple of mini puffs with some of my excess choux, because this is what my choux ring looked like:
My minis were delicious. The chocolate pastry cream is ultra rich and chocolatey. Mine ended up a little over cooked because I ignored the voice in my head that said it was done, and continued on to the "let it bubble in the center for 20 seconds". By that time, the pastry cream was already cooked, so I did have a few textural challenges.
This month's recipe was hosted by my blogging buddy Susan of Baking with Susan. Check out her Paris-Brest, as I'm certain hers will be beautiful. You can check out the other Chocolate with Francois bakers here.
13 comments:
it sitll looks great! i will be posting (and baking--eep!) later this afternoon. what can I say? I'm a procrastinator!
Good job. I wish...REALLY wish mine had turned out great. It was a flop. Oh well...next time.
I love the mini's! Glad you liked the taste!
Yum it looks like a delightful chocolate treat to me!
I like your mini's Leslie. Much easier to eat that way! They look great! Thanks for baking with me. :)
It still looks good to me. I am glad you made the minis so you could get a better idea of what it looks, puffy. I bet even the flatter version tasted good.
I'm glad your mini turned out good. It looks delicious. I think you could have gotten rid of the curdled pieces in your choc pastry cream by straining it... something to try for next time :o)
A perfect chocolate dessert. It looks gorgeous.
Mimi
It must have tasted sooo delicious! The ingredients alone make my mouth water! :)
This sounds like a fantastic group! Is it still open to new members? I think I would love it!
Yum! I love Paris Brest, and would have never thought of doing a chocolate version. Hmm, probably because I'm not a chocolate fanatic! Yours looks delicious, though, and just might convert me!
I have made a non-chocolate version of this and loved it. You and your chocolate. Okay, this might be the flat tire version, but I bet it tasted nicely and you liked that part!
I think this looks so delicious!
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