Courtesan Au Chocolat A La Grand Budapest Hotel
Choux pastry puffs
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup 1 stick of unsalted butter
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 larger pinch of sugar
- 4 beaten eggs
Milk chocolate ganache filling
- 1 cup of heavy cream
- 3 cups of high quality milk chocolate, I used Lindt brand
Vanilla Cream Glaze
- 1 cup of icing sugar
- 5 teaspoons cream, plus more if needed
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- gel colouring in pink, sky blue and green
Simple Vanilla Buttercream
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup of icing sugar
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon milk
Make the choux pastry puffs
Note: you will need three baking sheets, each lined with a piece of parchment paper. You will also need a piping bag fitted with an open circle tip.
In a medium saucepan, bring the water, butter, salt and sugar to a boil.
Remove from heat. Slowly mix in sifted flour.
Return to heat, stirring and cook for a minute until dough forms a buttery lump.
Let cool slightly.
In a small bowl, beat the eggs until combined.
Stir in the egg mixture into the flour mixture, mixing until combined.
Using a piping bag fitted with an open circle tip, pipe out the choux dough in three different sizes to form the towers – golf ball sized, walnut sized then quarter sized. Tip: if your piped dots have “tails”, fill a tiny bowl with warm water and dip a clean finger into the bowl and use your finger to press down the “tail.”
Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes until puffy and happily browned on the bottom; remove the quarter-sized ones after 20 or so minutes.
Using a paring knife, cut an “X” slit into the bottom of each puff to allow steam to escape.
Make the ganache!
In a medium saucepan, heat the cream on medium-low heat until it reaches a low boil.
Add the chocolate; turn off the heat and let sit for ten minutes untouched.
Whisk together to form a silky ganache.
Power chill in the freezer for 30 minutes until ganache thickens enough to pipe into pastry puffs.
Once puffs are cool and ganache is thick enough fill a piping bag with ganache and pipe into the bottoms of the puffs.
Make the buttercream
Combine all ingredients for the buttercream in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Beat on high until fluffy and light. Add a tiny amount of sky blue gel food colouring to tint.
Fill a piping bag fitted with an open star tip with the buttercream.