Crème brûlée choux craquelin

5 from 15 votes

Crème brûlée choux craquelin

This Crème Brûlée Choux au craquelin (cream puff) is filled with silky vanilla pastry cream (Crème Pâtissière) and topped with a crunchy caramelised sugar layer just like traditional Crème Brûlée

Cook Time1

Waiting time3

Total Time4

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings:

Calories: 191kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

For the pastry cream

500 g Whole milk 3% fat
100 g Granulated sugar
80 g Egg yolk approx. yolk of 5 eggs
25 g Corn starch
25 g AP flour
2 teaspoon Vanilla bean paste
50 g Unsalted butter room temperature soft

For the choux bun

60 g Unsalted butter
60 g Water
60 g Whole milk
Large pinch of salt
½ Tablespoon Granulated sugar
70 g Bread flour high protein flour
110 g Egg might need slightly more or less, pls see tips above

For the craquelin

100 g Unsalted butter room temperature
100 g Cane sugar
100 g AP flour

For caramelizing the top

cane sugar white or brown can work too

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Pastry cream

Start with making the pastry cream according to my detailed step-by-step Baking Guide in here
Let pastry cream fully set and chill before using

Craquelin

Continue with the craquelin by creaming butter and sugar together then add the flour. If the mixture is too soft place it into the freezer for few minutes for the butter to harden a bit.
When the craquelin dough harden a bit, roll it out between two Perforated "air" baking mat into 2 mm thick then place the rolled out sheet into the freezer with Perforated "air" baking mat on it for minimum an hour. If at any point during rolling the dough gets too sticky, place it into the freezer for a minute or two then continue rolling until reaches 2mm of thickness.

Choux bun

Continue with the choux pastry by sifting flour then measure and set aside
Place butter, water, milk, salt and sugar into a saucepan over medium heat
As soon as the mixture starts to boil remove from heat, add the flour in one go and whisk vigorously with a Rubber spatula until it forms one smooth ball and flour bits are not visible
Place the saucepan back to the stove and cook the dough for about 3 min over medium heat mixing constantly. It is ready when a sort of skin forms on the bottom up the saucepan
Transfer the dough into a bowl and let it cool down slightly before mixing the egg in. Only add a small amount of egg at a time, consistently whisking after each addition. You should reach a consistency which is not too runny, not too firm but just fine to pipe. Pls see tips above
Pipe 20 equal sized buns on the baking mat leaving enough space in between them as they will puff, then place the tray into the freezer for 10 min at least
Pre-heat oven to 200 C / 392 F
Take the craquelin sheet out from the freezer and with the help of a cookie cutter cut out 20 circles, approx. 1 cm larger in diameter than the choux buns you just piped
Take the choux buns out of the freezer and place one craquelin disk on each of them. The craquelin disk should be frozen and very firm at this point,which makes the process of cutting as well as placing them on top of the choux bun easy
Pop the tray with the choux buns back to the freezer for 15 min
Lower oven temperature to 170 C / 338 F and bake the choux for 40 min. Do not open the oven door in the first 30 min. If you are baking it the first time it is a good idea to take one choux bun out of the oven at 40 min and check its consistency. If it is golden in colour, nicely puffed up, does not deflate on room temperature and the middle of the ball is not raw (it is ok if it's a bit wet, it will dry while cooling down) then it is considered to be done
Cool either on the perforated air mat or if baked on parchment then cool them on cooling rack

Filling

Cut the top off and fill the buns after both pastry cream and choux bun completely cooled
Sprinkle the top with sugar, approx. ¼ tablespoon per bun then caramelize the top in a few seconds with Blow torch

Notes

Nutrition