Our Daring and Challenging hosts this month

Helene at Tartlette and

Anita at Dessert First

You will find very professional presentations at both their places and I’m sure a very stunning round up of all the Daring Bakers Gateau on their sites.  And I’m sure you’ll also get the skinny on this lovely and fantastic Gateau Saint Honore cake as well as finding the amazing recipes for all parts of this most daring and challenging Gateau Saint Honore.  You’ll find all that on their sites and at many of the other Daring Bakers sites.  All Daring Bakers are listed on my left side bar.

What you won’t find there but will find here is ....

Several new blisters on my thumb and fingers.

At least 20 feet of counter space covered with diplomat cream, whipped cream, and clumps of caramelized sugar.

A stove top well dusted in flour some of which is now burned.

A floor well dusted with flour, drips of all the creams and the carmel sugar.

A refrigerator door handle well coated with pate a choux that pretty much glues your hand to it if you are strange enough to want to open it to find a large bowl with some strange grandiose start at the dough package for pate feuillete.

Now, Helene sent out a beautiful and carefully put together recipe for all parts of this cake.  She provided amazing support and encouragement to all this now huge group.  I started out with such excitement and confidence.  I studied the recipe and followed all the e-mails back and forth.  Sucks, I figured I’d just pretend I was a pastry student and take it like a test only without the time limit of four hours.

My first attempt resulted in the dough package sitting in said refrigerator, great tasting diplomat cream, some wild experiments with differing sizes of cream puffs and then things sort of got late, dinner was being called for, the next days were out of my control, the diplomat cream got eaten somehow and it was time to start over.  In other words, my organization went way south and I gained another deeper appreciation of what a pastry chef juggles during the course of a day.

This was a really tough one for me.  I think I really would have enjoyed just the puff pastry - pate feuillete - but with all the other parts to this and permission to use store bought that’s what I used.  So I’ve missed I think the best part of this cake.

Well, I really love the diplomat cream - it’s even good in coffee!  And in spite of the blisters my hands now sport, I really loved the carmel!  That  is just good stuff.

For years my Dad has warned me that making cream puffs is a dangerous undertaking and now I understand.

Here’s my Dad’s story:

When my Dad was 17 he went to work in a bakery in Mexico Missouri.  He mostly was responsible for dough-nut making but did whatever was needed.  He would tell about going into the bakery early (about 1 AM) one morning and finding a massive clean up under way as the flour for the cream puff dough had caught fire and exploded when it was dumped into the boiling water & butter mixture.  

I made the cream puffs three times.  They are easy and really good.  The tricky part is getting the flour into that boiling water butter mixture without coming out with just lumps or getting so much flour into the air you really could get an explosion.  Two hands are limiting.  I tried spooning it, using a cup, didn’t really work for me.  What worked best for me was using the duster can with fairly large openings.

Eventually I did find a third hand for filling the pastry bag.  I found a one quart zip lock bag was the best size for me to work with and used that for my pastry bag.  In the above photo the tip connecter in facing away from the camera.  I know a really good blogger would have turned it so it would have been visible.

The cake is really impressive especially when done by somebody really talented and it tastes really great even when I do it.  But, I believe I’ll leave this one for the professional pastry chef next time around.

I’m traveling for the next three weeks but hope to drop in here several times during that time.

Dance, dance.

Let’s bring on the June Challenge Daring Bakers!!