Lesson 12: Paris Brest

Guess what! We only had to make one thing for the practical class today! But of course the school is not gonna let us off so easily! What we had to make was Paris Brest! So here comes the history of Paris Brest. Chef Am, who replaced Chef Geraldine today as she was doing the advanced chocolate workshop, told us that this was to commemorate the cycling race from Paris to Brest in France every year. Hence, the shape of this pastry looks like the shape of a wheel.

This is also another shape of choux pastry and it is totally nerve-wrecking to do this! But am glad we all pulled it through though at the end. Firstly, we need to pipe the choux pastry on two separate circles. One was called the core of the circle, and the second was the Brest. What the Brest consisted of was three circles, one inside, one outside, and one on top and in between the two first circles. Sounds confusing isn't it! We were all pretty confused too until we really did it in practical class.

But one thing I liked about this pastry was the cream. As we added the praline, which is like a jam made out of grinding nuts and sugar after cooking them, it made the cream smell really nice!But Chef Am's comment was that I could have beaten the cream more so that it is lighter and more uniform piping.

Here is how the Paris Brest looks like! What a sigh of relief after finishing it! Some people who tasted it at my home said it tasted like ice cream! Panya gave a 7.0 for this. I didn't think he liked the cream that much.

Paris Brest by Chef Am

Paris Brest by Li Lian