Vanilla and Tonka Bean Saint-Honoré

In a bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar and salt, add the softened butter and knead for a few minutes until you get a smooth, homogeneous dough.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of 3–4 mm between two sheets of baking paper.

Lift the top sheet of baking paper and use a cutter to stamp out discs of about 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter.

Replace the baking paper and freeze until needed.

Preheat the oven to 250°C / 480°F fan.

Bring the water, salt, sugar and butter to a boil in a saucepan.

Off the heat, add the sifted flour all at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until combined.

Return to the heat for 30 seconds to dry out the dough (it should just start to catch on the bottom of the pan).

Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Leave to cool for a few minutes. (If using a stand mixer, you can run it at low speed to cool it more quickly — I use the flat beater.)

Beat the whole eggs together in a separate bowl.

Add the eggs gradually, mixing after each addition. The dough should be neither too thick nor too liquid — it should fall in a ribbon. A line drawn through the dough with your finger should slowly close back up.

Transfer the dough to a piping bag fitted with a 12–15 mm smooth tip.

Pipe 2 choux logs onto the puff pastry base, about 1 cm (0.4 in) from the edge.

Then pipe small choux puffs of about 3 cm (1.2 in) in diameter onto a lined baking tray. It helps to draw a template (or print one out) on the baking paper and then flip it over.

Place a craquelin disc on top of each choux puff.

Put both trays in the oven and immediately turn it off for 10 minutes. Then switch the oven back on to 160°C / 325°F and continue baking the small puffs for about 10–15 minutes and the Saint-Honoré base for about 20 minutes. Adjust timings to your oven.

When the small puffs are baked, quickly open the oven, remove their tray and close the oven again straight away. Be quick — the base still needs a little more time.

Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool at room temperature.

For a photo step-by-step guide to choux pastry, see my dedicated choux pastry tutorial on the blog.

I used a ready-made block of puff pastry from Picard (excellent quality). The block format makes it easy to shape into a rectangle. You can of course make your own puff pastry from scratch.

Roll out the puff pastry to a thickness of 2–3 mm.

Trim to the size you want. Mine was approximately 18 cm (7.1 in) × 24 cm (9.4 in).

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

Add the cornstarch and mix well.

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

Whisk over medium heat for about 2–3 minutes until the cream thickens.

Pour into a wide shallow dish and cover with cling film pressed directly onto the surface. Leave to cool at room temperature, then refrigerate.

Once fully chilled, remove from the fridge, transfer to a bowl and whisk until smooth.

Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a 8–10 mm smooth tip. Refrigerate until needed.

Place the bowl and the beaters of your electric mixer in the freezer for at least 15 minutes.

Pour the cream, mascarpone, vanilla seeds and grated tonka bean into the chilled bowl. Begin whisking at medium speed, then increase the speed as the cream starts to stiffen. Gradually the cream will mount and hold its shape.

Check the consistency from time to time by stopping the mixer. The chantilly is ready when it is completely set — if you tip the bowl upside down, it shouldn’t fall. Be careful not to over-whip: too long and you’ll get a greasy texture (or even butter if you go far enough). Know when to stop.

Add the icing sugar when the cream is almost fully whipped.

Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a large Saint-Honoré tip and refrigerate until assembly.

Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until you obtain a light golden caramel.

Using the piping bag of pastry cream, fill the choux logs (making 3 holes along their length) and the small choux puffs.

Once the caramel is ready, remove from the heat. Dip the choux puffs into the caramel and place them into silicone moulds of a suitable size. Be very careful not to burn yourself — caramel burns are unforgiving! Leave for a few minutes before unmoulding. This gives each puff a smooth, even caramel coating. If you don’t have silicone moulds, use a guitar sheet or a sheet of baking paper as a substitute.

Stick the caramel-glazed puffs onto the two choux logs using a little more caramel.

Fill the centre of the Saint-Honoré with vanilla pastry cream, then pipe the chantilly using the Saint-Honoré tip. In my case, the choux puffs were much larger than intended (4 puffs across instead of 6), so after piping the chantilly I felt the proportions were off and piped a second layer of cream on top. Adjust to suit your own Saint-Honoré base and the amount of chantilly you have.

Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.