November 2014 Daring Bakers Challenge: Paris-Brest

The November Daring Baker’s challenge took us for a ride! Luisa from Rise of the Sourdough Preacher challenged us to make Paris-Brest, a beautiful pastry celebrating the Paris-Brest bicycle race. 

This was for me a great challenge as I always enjoy making choux pastry and everything that has to do with it. It seems though that I have to post late once more as my computer decided not to work lately.

The recipe that I followed was the recipe given with some differences in the cream, so, i think there is no point to post the whole recipe, as you can find it here, with a lot of details. I didn't change anything to the pastry recipe, the only thing I changed was the cream.

The pastry is really easy to make, the only thing is that you have to pay attention to the recipe and do exactly as it says. When you take the baked choux out of the oven they have to be dry outside and empty inside. You can try that by taking out one and open it in the middle.

 The original recipe is using créme mousseline with an addition of praliné. I used the same recipe with the difference that when my cream was done I added 40 g of nougat, the one that is like a chocolate bar like this and afterwards instead of adding butter I added 100 ml of whipped cream and beat it with my cooled nougat cream, which made it extra fluffy. for this recipe, it is easier to cut the choux in the middle to fill them and it is also recommended to do it with a corné, as it is going to show.

 I made 20 very small ones and 8 bigger ones, but I recommend making bigger ones, like in the original recipe, because choux pastry rises a lot and it is not going to hold the shape, if it is too small.

Anyway, my Paris-Brest turned out delicious and had a lot of fun making this month's challenge.