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It is said this cake was invented Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris in 1847 in a bakery called Chiboust which in turn gave its name to the cream that originally filled this cake. A chiboust cream is a pastry cream to which an Italian meringue is added making it light and airy and also incredibly sweet (too sweet?). In today’s French bakeries, you are more likely to find a Saint-Honoré filled with a diplomat cream: a pastry cream to which whipped cream is added. But in this recipe, it is not one nor the other but just a pastry cream with its little bonus ingredients giving it the Cedric Grolet touch (heavy breathing; yes now you too are picturing that fat cat meme).

The inverted puff pastry

Who says Saint-Honoré says puff pastry! Yayyyy? I have written a complete post about puff pastry here. For this recipe you will need one disc of 18cm in diameter (about 7 inches). Using a fork poke the dough, don’t be shy and really go at it. To further prevent the dough from rising too much, bake it between two baking trays adding a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough (tray, parchment paper, dough, parchment paper, tray).

Bake in a 350F oven for 30 minutes or until golden and puffy. About 5 minutes before the dough is completely done, take it out of the oven, remove the top tray and the piece of parchment paper and using a strainer, dust it with caramel powder. Place back in the oven until the powder melts. Beware!! Caramel powder is very fine it will melt almost instantly so don’t go anywhere and tell Aunt Petunia to call back later.

To make caramel powder, you will need to place some sugar in a saucepan on the stove and cook until it becomes a light auburn color. We call this ‘caramel à sec’ which literally translates to ‘dry caramel’ because nothing else is added to the sugar (aka no water). Immediately transfer onto a piece of parchment paper and let cool. Once cooled, break into pieces and blend until you get a fine caramel powder. This powder is extremely sensitive to humidity so store in an airtight container or use right away.

You can get a similar effect using powdered sugar instead of having to make caramel. I find the sugar tends to burn more easily and the caramelization is not as uniform (or pretty) than when using caramel powder but it is entirely up to you!

The choux

I have also written a post about choux pastry! Everything you need to know about it is here. If you read that post you’ll know that you can make these ahead of time, freeze raw, store in a ziplock bag and bake at will when needed without thawing. For this recipe you will need about twenty 2cm choux (about 3/4 inches in diameter).

The vanilla custard

Hydrate 8g of gelatin powder in 40g of cold water (preferably bottled water). Whisk together 90g of egg yolks and 45g of sugar. Add 25g of corn starch and 25g of flour, whisk until combined.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan on medium high warm up 450g of milk, 50g of heavy cream and the other 45g of sugar. By settling at the bottom, the sugar will prevent the milk from sticking to the saucepan but it is also ok to put it all in the egg yolk mix.

When the milk simmers, pour it onto the egg yolk mixture while whisking. You’ll notice in the picture below that you need to have all of the other ingredients ready to go as well.

Whisk until combined then transfer the cream back onto the saucepan and return to the stove on high. The cream should thicken. You know it is done when it starts forming bubbles meaning it has reached the boiling stage. Once it’s there, whisk for 1 minute. Throughout this entire process you HAVE TO whisk continuously and vigorously otherwise the cream will stick to the pot and burn.

Once it is cooked, turn off the stove and add the butter, the gelatin, the cocoa butter and the mascarpone.

If you prefer you can melt the gelatin 10 seconds in the microwave before incorporating it. It helps get a smoother cream and you can more easily get away with not hand mixing it. I usually do it but since the cream is very hot, it works well if you don’t.

Transfer the cream onto a dish that you will have previously clean filmed. Film the cream right away making sure that no air is in direct contact with the custard cream as this would make it crust. Send it to the fridge to cool completely.

The assembly

Using a toothpick, dig little holes at the bottom of each chou. This will be the entry point to fill them with cream.

Take the cream out of the fridge and whisk it up using the stand mixer. It may be possible to do this by hand, but it would be quite a work out and the finish wouldn’t be as light and airy as with the mixer.

Transfer the cream into a pipping bag without a pipping tip. Cut an opening narrow enough to fit in the holes and fill the choux with the cream. Using the edge of the mixing bowl that we used to whisk up the cream, clean up each chou underneath removing the excess cream as you go.

Once all the choux are filled, it is time to dip them into caramel. If you choose to, at this point, you can reserve them in the fridge and only finish the cake the next day. In any case, now is time to talk caramel! That beautiful red bronze liquid that claimed our fingers so many times. But not anymore! I’ve become so scared of doing this that I came up with a burn proof way to get through it (I think I came up with this but I probably didn’t).

In a medium saucepan combine 500g of sugar and 200g of water. Don’t let the caramel get to a color that’s too deep. We will need to reheat it at least once so keep that in mind.

Once the color is to your liking, get a silicon mould out with cavities large enough to accommodate the choux. For this I found the perfect mould on amazon with the perfect size!

The middle sized mould (top left corner) works perfectly! You need to pour fast, the caramel will harden quite fast and you want to have your choux dipped in before the caramel hardens too much. You can place the mould in a hot oven, it will prevent the caramel from hardening too fast and give you a little more time to work. It’s a little messy I know but it works very well!

Place your choux down in the caramel and wait until it has completely cooled to remove them. To do that, gently pull around the sides until you feel the chou coming loose.

On the puff pastry disc, pipe some of the cream to about 2cm (0.7 inch) thick. Arrange the choux all around snug and tight together.

Whisk up 500g of heavy cream and 50g of mascarpone, 17g of sugar and 2.5 vanilla beans.

With a Saint-Honoré pipping tip, pipe the cream all around. Add a chou in the middle et VOILA!!!

Gnom Gnom Gnom…