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The other day at a restaurant, I had salted butter caramel eclairs with a hazelnut cracker. I threw myself into the kitchen to make choux with a caramel pastry cream of my own, as inspired by the moment. We’re seeing these beautiful cabbages everywhere today and I had plenty of requests to put a recipe for them. In the end, it’s just classic choux but topped with a pastry that keeps them baking and makes for really perfect choux. This is quite a dramatic difference from free-growing cabbage. And there’s nothing difficult about it. You just need to be as regular as possible in poaching the choux (which is no problem for those who are used to macaroons) and put a small disk of dough of the same diameter. That’s all ! I just came back from Brittany, so I put a lot of salted butter everywhere and it’s overflowing with caramel for my greatest pleasure! What a joy it is on a hot day to bite into these fresh cabbages!
Recipe for 12 large choux (4cm in diameter before baking):
Choux pastry:
-60ml of water
-65ml of milk
-125ml of eggs
-70g of flour
-55g of butter
-3g of sugar
-2g of salt
Hazelnut paste:
-30g of flour
-30g of roasted hazelnut powder
-30g of semi-salted butter
-30g of brown sugar
Salted butter caramel cream:
-165g of sugar
-600ml of milk
-65g of semi-salted butter
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-50g of cream powder (or cornstarch)
-100g of egg yolks
First, prepare the salted butter caramel custard. First, separate the sugar. There are 165g for the recipe. Set aside 25g to put with the yolks. It thus remains 140g for the caramel which one will make with dry. Put a small portion of the 140g of sugar in a saucepan over moderate heat without water.
The sugar will start to melt and then caramelize. Do not use too much heat as the caramel may burn and take on a bitter taste.
Then add a little more sugar (still on the whole 140) and let it melt.
Do this until the end of the 140g of sugar that you transform into caramel.
Remove from heat and add a small amount of milk. Be careful with the possible projections!
Add the semi-salted butter and salt.
Heat over low heat without boiling to just let the caramel melt.
Meanwhile, whisk the yolks with the cream powder (or cornstarch) and the sugar (the 25g).
When all the caramel has had time to melt, bring the milk to a simmer and then pour it over the yolks/sugar/cream powder while whisking.
Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and set over low heat while whisking.
The cream will set. Be careful of lumps!
Once boiling, the cream is well set. Pour it into a dish and strain on contact. Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate.
For cabbage:
Start by preparing the hazelnut dough by mixing together the roasted hazelnut powder (if they are not roasted, that works too!) the brown sugar, flour and soft semi-salted butter.
Place the dough on a sheet of parchment paper and place another sheet on top. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible (1mm).
Place this dough (with the paper) on a baking sheet and refrigerate while you prepare the rest.
Preheat your oven to 195°C.
Put the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil over low heat.
Add the flour all at once off the heat.
Mix quite briskly and then put back on low heat for 1 minute to dry the dough. It is necessary to mix constantly. The dough will come off the bottom of the pan.
Pour the dough into a bowl.
Add the 125ml of beaten eggs little by little to the dough. Mix well before adding the remaining eggs.
Stir vigorously to blend.
Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a 10mm plain tip.
Pocket your cabbage. To get 12 large ones, I made 3-4cm diameter choux, a bit like for macaroons.
Cut with a glass or a cookie cutter disks of the same diameter as your choux (3-4cm). It is by being as regular as possible that the cabbages will be very beautiful at the end.
Gently place a disk of dough right in the center of the cabbage. The disc must remain well balanced, so that the dough covers the choux perfectly.
Bake at 195°C for 20 to 25 minutes, always watching. The cabbages must be well puffed up and well browned. The dough magically covered the choux, keeping them perfectly half-spherical. If you don’t cook them enough, they may deflate after cooking.
Take the crème au caramel out and whip it to a smooth texture.
Fill your choux either with a piping bag from below.
Either by opening them with a knife. This is especially true if you want to add salted butter caramel. For this, I took my caramel sauce recipe (recipe HERE) and put it in ice cube trays in the freezer overnight.
Hop we unmould (that does not unmould so well as that but at least we manage to make a dumpling) and we can put some in the middle of the cream.
Serve these choux fresh, lightly dusted with powdered sugar!
