In honour of the final of this year's Great British Bake Off, Mark Murphy from Dingle Cookery School was back on the show with another recipe but this one is a showstopper!
He has suggested a Paris Brest which is a choux pastry ring filled with piped praline cream, and topped with icing sugar and flaked almonds. If that sounds like something you want to take on, here's the recipe:
Ingredients
For the choux pastry:
- 100 ml milk
- 100 ml water
- 95g butter
- 115g flour
- 4 eggs (you may need 1 more for egg wash)
For the praline:
- 100g of whole almonds
- 50g of caster sugar
- 1 tbsp of water
For the cream:
- 500ml cream
- 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out or drop of vanilla extract
- 2 tsp. icing sugar
For the topping:
- Icing sugar
- Handful of flaked almonds
Method
For the choux pastry:
- Preheat the oven to 200ºc
- Heat water and milk and butter in a pot. Once it comes to the boil remove from the heat and then tip the flour in all in one go, beat the flour into the liquid. Return the pot to the heat and cook while beating, you want to do this for at least 1 minute, this will cook the flour. When it is ready the paste should have formed a ball, it should be shiny and comes easily off from the sides of the pot.
- Remove this from the heat and add to a bowl.
- Add in about 1/3 of the egg. Beat this vigorously until the egg has been incorporated, add the next 1/3 of egg and repeat. You may not need all the egg so on the last 1/3 hold back a little. Mix it and see where you are with it, if it doesn’t seem too runny add in the last bit (sometimes it will take and sometimes it won’t) the mixture should be glossy and fall slowly off a wooden spoon.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Draw a 15cm circle on the parchment.
- Put the dough into a piping bag (use a round or star nozzle) and pipe the filling along the circle. ,then pipe another circle inside the first circle and make sure it touches the first. Now pipe another circle on top of the two circles.
- If you have remaining egg (if not, use another egg), use a fork to beat it and use this as an egg wash to brush the top of the dough.
- Sprinkle generously with flaked almonds and place in the oven for 10 minutes.
- Turn the heat down to 180ºC and continue cooking for a further 25-30 minutes. Remove it from the oven and transfer to a wire rack. Immediately cut in half horizontally to release all the steam use a serrated knife for this).
- If the inside is still soft and doughy, return to the oven for a few more minutes to dry out. Leave in two halves to cool thoroughly.
For the praline:
- Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add the almonds toast them for about 3 minutes. Place this in a bowl while preparing the sugar. Put the sugar and water in a pot, place
- this over a medium heat (be careful here, this mixture will get hot – make sure for the few minutes while making this to keep children away from stove and work area)
- Heat this without stirring for about 5-7 minutes or until the sugar turns to a caramel golden colour. Once the colour turns, remove from the heat immediately and stir in the almonds. Stir this well and pour this mixture on to a tray lined with parchment.
- Once cool break this with a rolling pin and then put in a food processor to bring this to a fine powder.
For the cream:
- Whip the cream until it reaches stiff peaks, fold in the vanilla and the icing sugar.
- Place this in a piping bag with a star nozzle.
- to assemble an decorate
- Place the bottom half of the ring on a serving plate, pipe the praline cream generously over the base. Place the other half of the ring on top of the pastry cream, dust generously with icing sugar and almonds.
Tune in to Mairead Ronan weekdays from 12pm.
