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Paris-Brest With Praline Mousseline Cream

Paris-Brest dessert filled with praline mousseline cream and dusted with icing sugar.
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5 from 19 reviews

Paris-Brest is an indulgent French dessert made of choux pastry and traditional hazelnut filling - praline mouseling cream. Its round shape has its own history and is so gorgeous that makes the cake really unique. Take a bite of this signature French treat!

Ingredients

Scale

For craquelin:

  • 1.4 oz. (40 g) unsalted butter, softened
  • 4 tablespoons (50 g) brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon (50 g) all-purpose flour
  • 1 pinch of salt

For the choux pastry:

  • 1/2 cup + 1/2 tablespoon (125 g) water
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 pinch of sugar
  • 2 oz. (60 g) unsalted butter
  • 2/3 cup (80 g) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup (125 g) eggs (see note #1)

For praline mousseline cream:

  • 1 1/2 cups + 5 1/2 teaspoons (375 ml) whole milk
  • ½ vanilla bean
  • 1/3 cup (75 g) granulated sugar
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 2 tablespoons (15 g) all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons (15 g) corn starch
  • 8 oz. (225 g) unsalted butter, softened
  • 4 oz. (115 g) hazelnut praline

For praline insert:

  • 3.5 oz. (100 g) hazelnut praline
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons (35 g) whipping cream

For decoration:

  • 1 tablespoon icing (powdered) sugar

* If needed, please refer to Baking Conversion Charts.

Instructions

  1. To make craquelin, mix the flour, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add the softened butter and knead with your hands for a few minutes to obtain a smooth paste. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough about 1/6 inch (4 mm) thick between two parchment paper sheets. Freeze the dough. Take the dough from the freezer and let it stand for a few minutes at room temperature. Using a round cookie cutter, cut out 8 disks 1/5 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Freeze again until ready to use.
  2. To make a choux pastry, preheat the oven to 355 degrees F/180 degrees C. Take a parchment sheet and, using a pencil, trace a pattern of a crown made of 8 circles of about 1/5 inches (4 to 5 cm) in diameter. Turn the paper over and put it on a baking sheet. Place water, salt, sugar, and butter cut into pieces in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, add the sifted flour all at once, and mix well with a wooden spoon. Bring back the preparation to the heat for about 1 to 2 minutes to dry the dough (it will start sticking to the bottom of the pan). Put the choux pastry dough out of the heat in a bowl. Let it cool for a few minutes.
  3. Beat eggs for an omelet in a small bowl. Start adding the eggs gradually. The dough must be neither too thick nor too liquid, it must form a ribbon. The test for the right choux dough: the furrow of a line drawn with the finger in the dough must close.
  4. Place the choux pastry in a pastry bag fitted with Ateco plain pastry tip 809. Arrange 8 choux buns of about 1/5 inches (4 to 5 cm) in diameter on the baking sheet covered with the prepared parchment template. Take the craquelin disks from the freezer and place them on each choux mound.
  5. Bake the round pastry for 35 min to 40 min without opening the oven. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.
  6. To make praline mousseline cream, sift flour and corn starch. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, and egg yolks, add flour with cornstarch, and mix with a hand whisk. In a large saucepan, bring milk with seeds of the vanilla bean to a boil. Pour hot milk into the yolk/flour mixture and continue mixing. Pour this preparation back into the pot and bring over medium heat again. Whisk constantly until the cream thickens. Pour the ready pastry cream into a bowl and cover it with plastic film making contact with the cream. Let it cool at room temperature.
  7. In a bowl of the stand mixer, place butter and whip it. Add the praline and mix it. Gradually add the smoothed pastry cream and whisk until homogenous.
  8. To make the praline insert (whipped cream), add cold whipping cream to the praline in three times and whisk with a hand or stand mixer. Place the ready insert in a pastry bag fitted with any medium pastry tip and refrigerate.
  9. To assemble the Paris-Brest, cut the crown in half horizontally with a serrated knife and gently invert the top onto parchment paper. Transfer the praline mousseline cream to a pastry bag fitted with an open star pastry tip and push it onto each of the 8 cavities' bases. Poach on the praline insert, then finish with a layer of praline mousseline cream again. Cover with the cap of the crown and dust with icing (powdered) sugar. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Notes

  1. 125 g whole eggs approximately equal to 2.50 whole large chicken eggs (eggshell removed).
  2. Add flour all at once to the water/butter mixture while making the choux pastry dough.
  3. Add eggs gradually, beating the mixture with a hand whisk, a wooden spoon, or a stand mixer until the choux pastry is smooth.
  4. Don't open the oven door while baking choux buns.
  5. Cool the pastry cream at room temperature (please, don't refrigerate).
  6. Make praline paste yourself or use store-bought hazelnut praline.
  7. Take the dessert from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.
  8. Make-ahead option: You can prepare praline paste a few days in advance, also craquelin, and keep it in the freezer. For mousseline cream, you make it the day before and refrigerate it. Take it from the fridge to room temperature about 1 hour before assembling the dessert. Whip it and pipe.

Nutrition

Find it online: https://www.bakinglikeachef.com/paris-brest-by-philippe-conticini/