This week’s French Fridays with Dorie is Paris-Brest, which is a particular Parisan pastry that was created in the olden days (the 1890s) to commemorate the Paris–Brest bicycle race. It’s pâte à choux dough (like for cream puffs or gougères) piped out in circles, baked, sliced in half, and filled with an almond praline vanilla pastry cream. I opted to make a half recipe and instead of one big eight-inch pastry, I made four small ones.
Notes:
1. I think my pastry tip was on the small side, so I got more pastries than I was expecting.
2. I used English muffins rings to pipe my rings inside of, but I think I could have skipped this. Next time, I’ll try it without and see what happens.
3. I added coffee liqueur to my vanilla pastry cream.
4. Almost all of my sliced almonds fell off the tops of my pastries after baking.
5. I had enough pâte à choux leftover to make two cream puffs.
6. I decided to cover my puffs with melted chocolate and since my almonds mostly fell of the Paris-Brests, I covered two of those with chocolate too. The other two got the powdered sugar.
Check out everyone’s Paris-Brest posts here. As always, all of the French Fridays recipes are in the cookbook, Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan.
Just lovely, Michelle! My almonds fell off, too, so I just sprinkled them on top. But, I love your addition of chocolate!
I love your additions and change ups. This dessert really inspires those doesn’t it. I do agree that I think the rings are an unnecessary complication as the puff really doesn’t spread out or lose its shape. I did a light egg wash before sprinkling the almonds and it gave it a nice sheen and helped the almonds stick. Truthfully, I did that without even thinking about it as the one time I saw this made thats what he did. I didn’t even realize it wasn’t in Dorie’s recipe until afterwards but I think it really helped the almond situation.
They are so pretty – I LOVE the chocolate coating on those! Thanks for indulging my choice this week!
Your minis are fabulous!!! I used a ring, too…great idea!
I really wish that I had went smaller with the ring – I think that would have made this more manageable.
My almonds never made it out of the freezer, so you did well to have any almonds on board 🙂
Beautiful! I will try using the little rings next time. Thanks.
Susan: Thank you!
trevor: Egg wash = brilliant! 🙂
Mardi: This was a fun one to make! I’m so glad you chose it!
Liz: Thank you. I think I saw the idea from Christy’s instagram.
Cher: It is more manageable at least in terms of saving leftovers, I think. We ate the puffs and one of the rings last night, and now I’m pretty sure we can finish the remaining 3 today! 🙂
Gracie: Thank you! Funny, everyone who used rings this time will probably try it without next time, and everyone who didn’t, will try it with the rings! 😉
First, that photo of the nuts is fantastic. Everything looks great but I love the chocolate topped ones.
Beautiful photos Michelle! Love the fun size of these. Your almonds look delicious!
Your pastries look gorgeous, Michelle. You are right. I used rings and I was thinking I’d try without next time. Those almonds were the best part.
Wonderful additions and I love the mini brests and oh yes chocolate.
Aw, they’re so cute! The chocolate ones look awesome – that’s what I want. Nicely done!
Your pastries look delicious! Love the chocolate, I think that was a nice idea. I didn’t actually make them this week, but did post a link to when I made these before.
In hindsight I think I’m fortunate to have waited until I return home to Colorado to make this fabulous dessert. There is no one to share it with here. I got so many tips from all of you regarding putting it together. Pastry baking is not my forté so I need all the help I can get. Nice job, Michelle. The addition of chocolate is a great idea.
This looks so amazing. I have never had or heard of Paris-Brest so was glad you introduced them and now I’m really craving one… I’m a fan of sweet pastries being small to force some control of how much I eat and it looks so precious and adorable
Lovely little minis!! In most of my failed attempts to make a pastry that will rise enough I used the almonds but like yours most of them fell. Then I read another tutorial that used egg wash on the pastry before it went into the oven. I did that and they stayed in place yay!!!
Love the minis! There are so many different ways to go with this recipe. I am definitely using a ring next time. My pastry spread out more than up.
I love that you used chocolate to drizzle on top! Yum!!! Great ideas!
Wonderful results you got there; love the chocolate coated ones too! I have not made mine as we were away for a week. Hope to include it with the beef on a string this week!
Great additions to this pastry! Lovely photos. I’ve been contemplating some of those English toast rings myself. May have to sneak those in when Sous Chef isn’t looking!