So a guilty pleasure of mine is buying cookbooks. Mainly because I like to drool over the pictures. Because let’s face it, you can easily find so and so’s recipe for a mind blowing hummus somewhere on the Internet. So I obviously don’t buy them for the recipes. But oh how I adore flipping through page after glossy page of artfully arranged pastries and desserts. It’s like walking through an art gallery to me. However, on the rare occasion that I actually attempt to bake a recipe from a cookbook, I like to use these “food porn” photos as a guide. You’d be surprised what clues you can gleam from them, aside from what the finished product looks like ideally. So this week I tackled Dominque Ansel’s Paris-New York. It’s a take on the classic Paris-Brest pastry, a choux pastry ring filled with praline cream and topped with almonds. Ansel’s version uses peanut butter and dark chocolate fillings to mimic a Reeses Cup, but in a more grown up, sophisticated way. As experienced as I am, I’m not a pastry master like Dominque Ansel. So I took a few liberties with the recipe and made my own modifications to preserve my sanity. His version is topped with caramel fondant and glazed peanuts. Isn’t it enough that I’m making the pate au choux and two mousse fillings from scratch?! So I substituted dulce de leche for the fondant, and store bought roasted, salted peanuts for the glazed ones. In the end the peanuts were an improvement on the original as it gave a nice salty contrast to the sweet fillings and provided texture as well. So I need to make another confession. This recipe took a few tries to get right, more so than usual. Which is why this post is so delayed. One attempt I accidentally mixed up the cream and milk between the two mousses and that ruined the texture. The peanut butter mousse came out stiff and un-pipeable, while the chocolate one was too loose. Then in another attempt, I didn’t use piping bags and tips when it was time to pipe the fillings. As a result, they came out as sad, lumpy and uneven blobs, when what I wanted was uniform dollops of mousse. It made me question (aka scream and curse) why I was trying so hard to make something that looked like a fancy donut! Once everything was said and done, I made a tasty pastry. I guess the moral of this story is, to don’t be too hard on yourself if you screw up or make a mistake. Sometimes it can be fixed, while other times you’ll have to start all over again. Whether you bake for fun or for others, whoever eats it is going to appreciate the effort despite how it looks or tastes. I like to think that if Yeti could eat sweets he’d enjoy the leftovers from my Pinterest fails, but like all other rabbits he’s a pure vegan lol. Notes:
Dark Chocolate Mousse From Dominique Ansel: The Secret Recipes Makes 3 cups Ingredients
Instructions
Peanut Butter Cream From Dominique Ansel: The Secret Recipes Makes 2 cups Ingredients
Instructions
Dulce de Leche Ingredients
Instructions
Pate a Choux Pastry From Saveur Makes 4-6 pastry rings Ingredients
Instructions
Assembly
Ingredients
Instructions
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AuthorWelcome to Lionhead Eats. Where I share my adventures in baking and beyond. Archives |