Real Food Has Curves

"What's that?" you ask. Um, just about the best dessert ever created. And French, to boot. Maybe a little old-school, but still the best. A Paris-Brest, a confection made out of pastry dough, pastry cream, whipped cream, and almond brittle. So named because it was traditionally served at the end of the long bike race between, well, Paris and Brest, a city way out in Brittany. I guess if you rode all that way, you deserved to wolf down the whole thing.

A nice slice will do for me--and you, too. Because it's definitely real food. Crazy, over the top, indulgent--but real all the way. For a celebration, a Paris-Brest can't be beat.

All this week, we're going to put this behemoth together, step by step. To start, we have to make the dough--aka, the pâte à choux (pronounced: paht-ah-shoe), the ring of cake itself. It'll involve some fancy pastry-cheffery and some Frenchified terms; but with Bruce's help in the kitchen, we're going to get it done and bring back the old desserts, the old ways, the real ways, the Paris-Brest.

To make the pâte à choux, first put four large eggs out on your counter. Why? We'll get to it.

Now put 1 cup of water, 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a light simmer, stirring occasionally as the butter melts.

Once the butter has melted and the water is bubbling, take the pan off the heat and mix in 1 cup all-purpose flour with a wooden spoon. It'll make a bit of a gooey mess, but get the flour completely dissolved.

Set the pan back over low heat. Low. No joke. If you're using an electric stove, the burner may not have cooled down quickly enough, so use a second one just now turned to low. Stir over the heat until the dough dries out a bit. A floury, white film will begin to stick to the insides of the pan. Also, the dough should not by sticky when touched. Stir, stir, stir. Not frenetically but just methodically. It should take 5, maybe 6 minutes.

What you've now got is called the panade (pronounced: puh-nahd). Impress your friends and family. "What are you doing in there?" "Oh, making panade."

Transfer the panade to a large bowl--or the bowl of a stand mixer--and leave it alone for 5 minutes. Don't scrape out any of that white film in the pan. Indeed, the reason you don't mix in the eggs in the pan at this point is because they'd pick up bits of that film, causing the pasty to have little tough, chewy bits in it. Can't have that. Plus, the mixture needs to dry out even more, if you can believe it. The less moisture, the more it will puff up and become crunchy in the oven.

Now beat in those four eggs with an electric mixer at medium speed. One at a time. They're no longer cold, so the protein chains have begun to unwind and elongate. They'll build better structure. That's why they've been on the counter.

Once one egg has been fully incorporated into the batter, add another. Don't get impatient. And scrape down the insides of the bowl occasionally to make sure everything's well incorporated. Once done, the dough will be smooth and shiny.

It's now pâte à choux. So named because it's also used to make small, round cream puffs--which look somewhat like little cabbages (thus, choux). Cabbage paste. I suppose no one would make it if they called it that. "Honey, I'm going to go in the kitchen and whip up some cabbage paste." Sounds like grounds for divorce to me.

Fortunately, a Paris-Brest isn't. But now comes the tricky part. Preheat the oven to 400F. (OK, that's not the tricky part.) Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Put the dough in a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch tip. (THAT'S the tricky part.) Pipe out a 10-inch circle onto the baking sheet, a smooth and even circle. (Although you'll see Bruce's isn't perfect. Listen, it's a dessert filled with pastry cream and whipped cream. Who's going to notice?) As you pipe it out, you'll have to press the dough down the bag and into the tip; push it out as your squeeze down the bag, slowly but efficiently. (I'm carefully avoiding the word "extrude.")

Once you've got a circle made, make a second, inside the first, right up next to it. And then pipe out a third circle on top of those two, right where over the seam where they meet. Tricky, as I said. You have to measure out what you've got and make sure you're doing it evenly throughout.

Sprinkle some sliced almonds over the pâte à choux rings, then leave the thing on the baking sheet at room temperature for 20 minutes. See, more drying out. It's crucial. Moisture trapped inside can turn the final cake mushy. Blech. Nobody would bike between Paris and Brest for that.

However, the moisture inside is also crucial. It's a fine balancing act. After all, this is dough that rises without any leavening. It rises because the steam inside gets trapped as the cake bakes. So you want some, just not a lot. Thus, the constant drying-out. Like your Uncle Fred. Only this time, it works.

Bake until puffed and lightly browned, about 40 minutes. Then turn off the oven, put the oven door ajar, and leave the cake on the baking sheet inside for about 1 hour.

Voilà, the cake's done. And you're ready for the next step: making the nougatine, the almond brittle. Check that out here.