100% Vanilla Cylindrical Cream Puffs

Toast the almonds in the oven for approximately 15 minutes at 150°C / 300°F.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the water and sugar to the boil. At 116°C / 241°F, remove from the heat, pour the nuts onto the liquid sugar and stir so the sugar coats all the nuts. The mixture will turn whitish — this is normal.

Return to a medium heat and stir until the sugar liquefies again and caramelises (this takes around twenty minutes). You must not stop stirring, to prevent the nut mixture from burning.

At the end of the cooking time, the nuts should be shiny and have taken on a lovely auburn colour. Spread them out on greaseproof paper and leave to cool.

Once completely cool, break up the nut slab and place it in a food processor with the fresh vanilla seeds, all the dried pods and the fleur de sel.

Blend, pausing regularly (to prevent the paste from overheating), until a praline consistency is achieved. The longer you blend the mixture, the more liquid it will become.

Transfer the vanilla praline into an airtight jar — it will keep for several months at room temperature. If you own a Thermomix, I can only recommend making your praline with it (tested and approved with my in-laws’ machine — the power of that appliance is incredible). If, like me, you only have a humble little food processor (I’m joking of course), you may not be able to blend the dried vanilla pods finely enough. To avoid having tiny unpleasant pieces in the mouth, I passed the praline through a sieve (it goes through very easily).

Rehydrate the gelatine in the water.

Break the white chocolate into pieces in a bowl (you can melt it slightly in a bain-marie or in the microwave).

Heat the 80 g (2.8 oz) of cream with the split and scraped vanilla pod in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Then cover and leave to infuse for 15 minutes.

Remove the vanilla pod, then heat the cream again.

Off the heat, add the rehydrated gelatine and stir.

Pour one third of the cream over the white chocolate and mix with a spatula to create an emulsion. Then pour in a second third, then a third, to obtain a smooth, homogeneous mixture.

Add the 170 g (6 oz) of cold cream and mix again. Blend for a few seconds with a hand blender to fully emulsify.

Cover with cling film and place in the fridge overnight.

Soak the gelatine sheet in very cold water for 10 minutes.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale.

Add the cornflour and mix.

Bring the milk to the boil with the vanilla seeds and pod in a large saucepan. Pour three-quarters of the milk into the bowl in a thin stream, whisking constantly, then pour everything back into the saucepan with the remaining hot milk.

Whisk over a medium heat until the cream thickens, for approximately 2–3 minutes.

Off the heat, add the squeezed-out gelatine, then the cold butter cut into pieces, and mix well.

Transfer to a wide dish, cover with cling film and leave to cool in the fridge for at least 1 hour (you can even do this step the day before).

The next day (or 1 hour later), place the crème pâtissière in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk at full speed for 2–3 minutes to lighten it.

Whip the full-fat liquid cream to a soft chantilly and fold it into the crème pâtissière in 3 additions.

Transfer the diplomat cream into a piping bag without a nozzle. Set aside in the fridge until assembly.

In a saucepan, combine the water, milk, salt, sugar and butter. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and add the flour all at once. Mix well with a wooden spoon.

Return to the heat for 30 seconds to dry out the panade (it should very slightly stick to the bottom of the pan).

Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Whisk the eggs then add them to the dough gradually. The dough should be neither too thick nor too liquid — it should form a ribbon (if using an electric hand mixer, use the dough hooks rather than the whisks; if using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment).

Transfer the dough to a piping bag without a nozzle. With this quantity of dough, you will obtain far more cream puffs than needed. You can halve the recipe or simply pipe the remaining choux pastry dough and make chouquettes, for example.

Prepare the stainless steel rings. To do this, cut a Silpain mat to fit the dimensions of your rings. Here I use rings 5 cm (2 in) wide and 4.5 cm (1.8 in) tall. The Silpain strip should line the inside of the ring perfectly.

Preheat your oven to 190°C / 375°F fan-assisted/convection.

Place the rings on a perforated aluminium baking tray, itself lined with a Silpain mat.

Pipe the choux pastry dough into the rings, filling them to one-third ( with my rings, I piped 23 to 24 g (0.8 oz) of choux pastry dough per ring ).

Place a second Silpain mat on top of the rings, add a second perforated tray, then place a heavy weight on top (I used my cast-iron casserole dish). Choux pastry develops an incredible force during baking.

Place in the oven and bake for 55 minutes.

At the end of the baking time, remove the tray from the oven carefully, taking care not to burn yourself (I recommend removing the weights first). Carefully remove the rings, then the Silpain strips. Leave the cream puffs to cool on a wire rack. Unless you are blessed with beginner’s luck (which I sincerely wish you), you may need several attempts to successfully make your cylindrical cream puffs. The success of your cream puffs will depend on several factors: your oven, the size of the stainless steel rings, the quantity of dough piped… One piece of advice: write down what you do. Weigh the choux pastry, put it in the oven, remove the rings and see whether you need to adjust next time.

If the cream puff does not perfectly follow the shape of the ring, you did not put enough dough in; if it overflows, there was too much. The choux pastry can be more or less well cooked (it is up to you to judge and test). Note that choux pastry takes longer to bake when enclosed in this way.

Transfer a good quantity of vanilla praline into a piping bag without a nozzle.

Whisk the vanilla ganache with an electric mixer until firm enough to pipe but not over-whipped. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a 16 mm smooth nozzle.

Prepare everything you will need for the assembly — you should have 3 piping bags: the vanilla praline, the vanilla diplomat cream and the vanilla whipped ganache.

Pierce the base of the cylindrical cream puffs with a knife by making a small cross first, then turning the knife to create a small hole.

Fill the cream puffs with vanilla diplomat cream (approximately halfway, even if it is hard to gauge), then a little vanilla praline, and finish with a little more diplomat cream.

Pipe a large ball of vanilla whipped ganache on top, then use a Parisian scoop (melon baller) previously heated (with a blowtorch or under very hot water) to hollow out a small well and pipe a little vanilla praline inside.

Set aside in the fridge until ready to serve. If the assembly of these cylindrical cream puffs is still not entirely clear, I recommend watching the video I made and published on Instagram: click here 🙂