Gateau St. Honore With Salted Caramel- France #159

 Gateau St. Honore With Salted Caramel- France #159

A decadent French pastry made with puff pastry, cream puffs, pastry cream and salted caramel.  FYI this takes over 2 hours to make. However, it was delicious even though I messed up. 

Puff Pastry:

• 1 sheet of high quality, store bought, puff pastry. 

Pate a Choux:

• 1/4 c. Unsalted butter
• 1/2 c. Water
• 1/2 tsp. Sugar
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 c. All-purpose flour
• 2 eggs

Creme Patisserie:

• 1 c. Milk
• 1/4 tsp. Vanilla bean past, or 1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract
• 1/3 c. Sugar
• 2 T. Cornstarch
• 2 T. All-purpose flour 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk

Creme Chantilly:

• 1/2 c. Heavy whipping cream
• 2 T. Powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp. Vanilla extract

Salted Caramel:

• 2/3 c. Sugar
• 1/3 c. Heavy cream 
• 1/2 tsp. Salt, or more to taste

1. Pate a choux: Preheat the oven to 425F.  
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, warm the water, unsalted butter, sugar and salt together.  
3. Once the butter has melted, remove the saucepan from the heat.
4. Pour in the flour and stir together to combine.
5. Move the saucepan over to low heat, and stir the now-formed dough/paste until it no longer sticks to the bottom of the pan (about 30 seconds to 1 minute).
6. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the eggs, one ata time.  It will be slightly difficult to mix the egg into the dough, but just keep vigorously stirring and eventually they’ll become incorporated.  Temporarily set this aside.
7. Puff Pastry Base:  Cut out a 7” round from the puff pastry.  You can use a bowl, pan, pot lid, whatever you have that will help you cut out a nice 7” circle.  Place this puff pastry circle on one side of a baking sheet fitted with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
8. Fill a pastry bag (no tip attached) with the pate a choux dough.  Pipe the dough out along the edge of the puff pastry circle (creating a sort of wall for the puff pastry).  
9. Now, pipe out approximately 16 small mounds on the open side of the baking sheet, spacing the mounds slightly apart.  Smooth out any ridges or pointed tips using your fingers.
10. Bake the pastry for 10 minutes at 425F., then without opening the oven door, bake the pastry for another 18 minutes at 375F., until they’re a deep golden color.  Place the pastry ring and pastry puffs on a wire cooling rack for cool completely.
11. Creme Patisserie:  Meanwhile, heat the milk in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat,
12. In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar, cornstarch, flour, egg and egg yolk together.
13. Once the milk is hot and steam is beginning to rise from it, stir in the vanilla .  
14. Pour half of the milk into the egg mixture, whisking the egg mixture vigorously as you do.
15. Pour the rest of the milk in, and continue to whisk vigorously.
16. Transfer the entire batter back into the saucepan and whisk over medium heat, it will take about 5 minutes for the cream to thicken up into a pudding-like consistency.  Just keep whisking the whole time.
17. Once the cream is starting to look like pudding, quickly remove the cream from the heat.  If you’re using vanilla extract, stir the extract in now. If there are any lumps in your cream, just whisk the cream really vigorously to smooth them out.
18. Transfer the cream to a clean bowl and cover the cream with a sheet of plastic wrap placed directly onto the cream (this will prevent a filmy layer from forming). Chill the pastry cream in the refrigerator.
19. Creme Chantilly:  In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the heavy cream on high speed until indentations begin to appear.
20. Pour in the vanilla extract and powdered sugar, then whisk on high speed until a frosting-like consistency is formed.
21. Salted Caramel:  In a medium saucepan, add the sugar + 1/4 c. Of water. DO NOT stir the 2 together.  simply place the saucepan over medium-high heat, and allow the mixture to come to a simmer.  Watch the sugar-water bubble for approximately 7-8 minutes, watching it go from white-ish/clear to a dark amber color.  DO NOT step away from the caramel as it can burn in a matter of seconds!!!
22. Once the caramel has reached a dark amber color and is just beginning to smoke, quickly remove the caramel from the heat.  Carefully pour the heavy cream into the caramel (it will bubble), then stir to combine.
23. Add the salt, and again stir to combine.
24. To Assemble:  Fit a pastry bag with a long, narrow filling tip.  Fill the pastry bag with the creme patisserie and then pipe this into the pastry puffs.  
25. Flip the pastry puff upside down so that the flat side is facing you, then dip the top in the salted caramel.  Gently give it a shake to pour off excess caramel, then carefully dip the bottom of the pastry puff in caramel too.
26. Place the pastry puffs onto the pate a choux wall that you created on top of the puff pastry circle. The caramel will act like a glue.  Continue until you’ve got a ring of pastry puffs.
27. Scoop the remaining creme patisserie onto the center of the puff pastry.
28. Fill a new pastry bag fitted with whatever tip you like with the creme Chantilly, and pipe the creme on top of the pastry cream.
29. Stick one final pastry puff in the center of the dessert, then drizzle caramel all over.
30. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Results: I messed up. I had no problem with the store bought puff pastry. HAHAHA. That was the easy part. The choux dough was a disaster. I don’t know what I did wrong but it turned out runny. Naturally I added more flour. That was not a good idea. The final pastry was very tough. So that was the first mess. The creme patisserie came out fine.  However, as a result of the individual puffs not puffing and being hard and tough, they were very hard to fill. The Chantilly was easy, no problem there.  Mess #2/- the salted caramel. It’s true, I stepped away for a split second. It was slightly burnt and I added too much salt. I used all the ingredients anyway, good and bad. Even though I made all these mistakes, I must say, it was very good.

Bottom Line: Tasters liked it but agreed that the pastry was tough. I would like to try this again someday, just not today. I’m still traumatized.

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