Saint-Honoré
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Indulge in the luxurious and timeless elegance of the iconic French dessert, the Saint Honoré. Created in 1847 at the renowned Chiboust bakery on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, this exquisite pastry is a true masterpiece. Imagine a delicate circle of flaky puff pastry, a decadent ring of choux pastry adorning its outer edge, and petite profiteroles glazed with rich caramel, meticulously arranged all around. The pièce de résistance? A luscious filling of creamy crème pâtissière à la vanille, topped with a heavenly swirl of Chantilly cream, expertly piped with a special Saint Honoré tip. Get ready to elevate your dessert experience with this upgraded version of a classic favorite.
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Gâteau St.Honoré
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Mise En Place
- Puff pastry and pate a choux may be made days in advance and kept frozen. Fillings should be made a day ahead and puffs filled and glazed with caramel the day the cake is scheduled to be served.
Puff Pastry Disk
- Roll out puff pastry into a 0.12 inch/3 mm sheet. Chill to rest. Cut out a 9-inch/23 cm disk, and a couple of strips 0.75 inch/ 2 cm width. Refrigerate pastry for 30 minutes to rest. Save leftover pastry for later use. With a wet brush, moisturize parchment and place pastry on. Lightly brush out the outer edge of the pastry with water.
- Make a neat border with the pastry strips. Freeze until ready to bake.
- Place 3 tart rings around the pastry. Cover with parchment and an upside down cooling rack and bake at 375ºF/190ºC for 25 minutes.
- Gently deflate the puffed center.
- Add almond cream.
- Bake for an additional 40 minutes. Baking time shall be lowered if using a convection oven.
- Once baked, flip pastry to cool off upside down. This allows almond cream to redistribute evenly and stay flat.
Pate A Choux
- Pipe 39 1.3 inch/3.5 cm diameter small puffs/petit choux.
- In a separate baking tray, pipe a large 4 inch/10 cm diameter choux.
- Dust pate a choux with powdered sugar. Bake one tray at a time at 375ºF/190ºC for 35 min. Turn oven off leaving the oven door ajar for 10 minutes. Lower temp to 350ºF/180ºC if using convection oven.
Vanilla Chantilly (Ganache Montée)
- Soak gelatin in cold water to soften, drain and set aside. Bring to a boil heavy cream with vanilla. Add to the chocolate and mix with an immersion blender.
- Add the softened gelatin and blend. Add remaining chilled heavy cream, mix well. Refrigerate for 6 hours at least before whipping.
Pastry Cream
- The addition of gelatin in pastry cream enhances its texture and stabilizes it. Soak gelatin in cold water to soften, drain and set aside. Bring to a boil milk with vanilla, and one third of the sugar. Turn off the heat, cover and let infused for 15 min if desired.
- Meanwhile, mix egg yolks with sugar and starches.
- Temper yolk mixture with one third of the hot milk.
- Pour tempered egg mixture into remaining hot milk; mixing constantly.
- Set burner to medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes whisking swiftly. Remove pan from the heat. Remove vanilla pod if in use, clean it and save. Add mascarpone if wanted and mix well by hand or use an immersion blender. Pastry cream can also be sieved.
- To cool custard faster, transfer onto a frozen baking tray lined with plastic film, and cover with another sheet of plastic film in contact. Top with ice pack and refrigerate.
Montage
- Smooth out chilled pastry cream.
- Poke a hole in the bottoms of 20 puffs and fill with pastry cream. Reserve in the refrigerator. Save remaining puffs for later use.
- Fill the large puff and refrigerate as well.
- For cosmetic purpose, cut off dome.
- Pipe some custard onto the pastry.
- Place the large puff in the center of the cake.
- Cover the entire cake dome with more pastry cream, and smooth out using an offset spatula. Place cake in the refrigerator.
Caramel
- In a small saucepan, add water, sugar and glucose. Cook syrup on medium high heat.
- When it reaches dark amber caramel (345ºF/175ºC) stop the cooking process by touching the bottom of saucepan with water.
- Caramelize puffs. For better results, have them cooling off in half-sphere silicone mold. Once done, refrigerate caramelized puffs for 20 minutes and remove from the silicone mold.
- Whip vanilla ganache montée to medium-firm peaks. Fill pastry bag with half of the filling (use the St. Honoré piping tip), set aside.
- Position puffs straight onto the pastry cream.
- Decorate cake harmoniously with the Chantilly.
Storage
- The Saint-Honoré belongs to the same category as croquembouche ''pièces montée''. Indeed, caramel stored under refrigeration tends to soften up pretty quickly and get messy. Don't panic, it is likely to happen after a few hours!..
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