Paris-Brest, Part 1
"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.
Mark Scarbrough | Posted on
Monday, January 25, 2010 at 1:12PM | in
Desserts,
Fabulously Empty Calories 


















