Craquelin Choux Pastry with salted caramel cream

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Directions

• Place the water and butter in a saucepan over low heat. Bring it to the boil (it is important that the mixture boils).
• Sift the flour and add to the butter/water mixture. Add salt. Stir until the mix forms a ball and starts to come away for the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat.
• Place in a mixing bowl and spread out around the bowl to cool, for about 5 minutes. Place egg in another bowl and combine. Using a wooden spoon gradually add small amounts of egg until the mix absorbs the egg and gets a shine to the pastry.
• The pastry will slowly fold in on itself when the correct amount of egg has been added (it may take a little more or less egg).
• Either pipe or drop small spoonfuls of pastry on a well greases baking tray.
• Bake 220C/ 230C fan forced for 10 minutes.
  Turn oven down to 180 C /160C fan forced for 20-25 minutes (this depends on the size of the puffs).
  When baked and appearing golden brown in colour, take out of the oven and make a small slit of the puff to let steam out.
  When cooled fill with salted caramel cream.
• Craquelin topping
• Place the butter, salt and sugar in a bowl and cream the ingredients together until creamy and fluffy.
• Add the flour and mix until the mixture looks crumbly. Using your hands, bring the crumbly bits of dough together for form a dough.
• Split the dough into two equal sized portions, and roll out both
  until it’s about 2-3 mm thick discs. Keep the discs flat and put into the freezer until completely frozen.
  Put discs on top of choux puffs and bake as per directions above.
• Salted caramel diplomat caramel cream
  Salted caramel pastry cream
• Sprinkle the sugar over the surface of a stainless pan or non stick pan. Make sure the sugar is sprinkled in a thin layer so that it’s easier for it to caramelize and to make sure there is no water in the pan and on the utensils.
• Heat over medium heat, taking care not to introduce water into the sugar. Stir the sugar as it melts with a heat proof spatula. The sugar will stick to the spatula, but as it is non-stick, the sugar will come off easily.
• Continue heating the sugar, while stirring frequently, until the sugar turns into caramel.
  When the colour is amber, add the 1/2 cup of warm milk into the pan. Be very careful as you don”t want splash back from the milk.
  Stir soon after adding the milk to dissolve the sugar. This will take a few minutes.
  When the caramel has mostly dissolved in the milk, add the rest of the milk, salt and vanilla into the pan. Heat the milk until it’s nearly boiling, while stirring to dissolve the rest of the sugar.
• While the milk is heating , in a separate bowl or small jug, add the eggs and cornflour and whisk until you have a smooth mixture.
  Temper the egg mixture by adding a little of the warm milk in a slow and steady stream, while whisking the eggs constantly. After adding enough milk to warm up the mixture, pour the egg-milk mixture back into the pan.
  Heat the egg-milk mixture while whisking constantly , until the milk starts to thicken. Stir well to make sure the eggs don’t curdle and stick to the bottom of the pan.
  
• Stir the custard until it comes to a boil. Remove from the heat. If there are clumps, pass it through a fine sieve to remove them.
  Add the butter to the hot custard and mix until the butter has incorporated into it. Pour the custard into a bowl, and cover the surface with cling wrap.
  Allow the custard to cool down to room temperature, then store it in the fridge for a few hours until chilled and it is ready to be mixed with the cream.
• Stabilized chantilly cream
• Place water in a small microwave proof bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over the surface of the water. Allow the gelatin to bloom for 10 minutes. After the gelatin has bloomed, microwave the gelatine for 10-20 seconds to dissolve the gelatin.
  Place the chilled cream in a clean bowl and add the icing sugar and vanilla. Start whisking the cream with a hand mixer. Pour in the dissolved gelatin while whisking the cream to ensure the gelatin gets mixed in well. Continue whisking until the cream forms soft peaks. Keep in the fridge.
• Place about 2 cups of the salted caramel pastry cream in a large bowl. Add the chantilly cream and fold it into the pastry cream. Keep covered in the fridge until you are ready to fill the choux cases. Place the chantilly cream into a piping bag, attached with a small round tip.