St. Honore Practice Run

99% of the time, I don't bother with trial runs on recipes. I am very good at winging it, and having things come out surprisingly well. This is the 1% of the time where I wouldn't trust bringing this to a dinner party without first testing it out. As an added bonus, I'm a little crazy about cream puffs, and that's essentially what a St. Honore is. My grandmother hails from France, and I must have picked up my sweet tooth from that side of the family, because French desserts are my weakness.

It's actually not that complicated, if you like making dough. Basic pie dough for the crust, and a cooked dough for the puffs.


What you need:

Puff Pastry:
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
Small pinch of salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Cream Filling:
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk

4 egg whites
3/4 cup berry sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
4 egg yolks

Caramel Syrup:
3/4 cup berry sugar
1/4 cup water

How to:
I cheated, and used a frozen pie crust. I cut off the edges, leaving just a disc of dough. Forgot to prick with a fork. Will do that next time!

Preheat oven to 400F.

Combine water, butter and salt in a saucepan. Heat on high, until the butter is melted. Add the flour, and stir until a dough forms. Remove from heat. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Spoon mixture into a ziploc bag (or piping bag) fitted with a piping coupling.
Put the pie base on a sheet of parchment paper, and pipe a 1-inch wide rim around the pie base. Pipe out the rest of the pastry dough into small puffs. I've learned that shape matters when you're piping. The balls puff up, but take on their piped shape. Good thing I made extras...(yum!)

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375F, and bake for another 15-20 minutes. DON'T open the oven to check. Peek through the window. I remember watching some baking show that said the fluctuation in temperatures from opening the oven door will affect the puffiness of the pastry.
When puffy and lightly browned, remove from oven and allow to cool.

Cream Filling:

Combine egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Whisk until mixture is pale yellow and smooth.

Add flour and mix until fully incorporated.

Add the milk, and bring to a boil over medium heat.

 You need to stir the whole time, because this filling will thicken up really quickly! I was surprised at how thick it got.

Remove from heat, and add the vanilla bean paste. Allow to cool.
Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks, and fold into the cooled filling mixture.

Stuffing the Puffs!
Fit a piping bag with a medium plain tip. Spoon the filling into the piping bag. Pierce the side of each cream puff with the piping tip, and squeeze in the filling. Once the puffs are filled, pipe the remaining filling into the middle of the pie crust.

Caramel Syrup:
Combine sugar and water in small heavy saucepan.

Boil over medium heat.

 Cook until syrup turns amber in color. REMOVE FROM HEAT!! Caramel continues to cook even off heat, so it's better to remove from heat as soon as it starts changing colour. I was distracted by an earthquake, and my caramel syrup looked fine when I took it off the heat, but it continued to cook when I removed it from heat, and it tasted burnt. Boo!
Super carefully dip the bottom of a cream puff into the syrup. Carefully place onto the rim of puff pastry.  Repeat until ring is covered. I didn't know that if I had waited for the syrup to cool, it would have been easy to drizzle it on top of the cake in thread-like strands. I just poured the sauce on top. I think it's going to be hard to cut at coffee this afternoon!

Dip the rest of the cream puffs in the caramel syrup, and allow the caramel to cool. EAT! (Or don't... I think I ate over a dozen...)