French restaurant guide Le Fooding is offering up a new Confinade recipe every couple of days to get home cooks through quarantine with simple comfort food, presented and filmed by their favourite chefs using readily available ingredients.
Next up is the super French pastry chef Sébastien Gaudard with his incredible puits d'amour or 'wells of love', available from his Pâtisserie des Martyrs in Paris, or at home with his secret recipe (below), and we can't wait to get stuck in.
What is a puits d'amour?
Think of a giant vol-au-vent of layers of puffed pastry, stuffed with a fruity compote or cream, and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
How to make Sébastien Gaudard's Puit d'Amour
You'll need pantry basics like eggs, sugar, milk, butter and cream, plus a vanilla pod and ready-made puff pastry.
Ingredients (for 6 people):
- 8 eggs
- 160 g sugar
- ½ vanilla pod
- 55 g of cornstarch
- 4.6 dL of milk
- 1.8 dL single cream
- 30 g fresh butter
- 800 g puff pastry
To make the crème pâtissière
Beat 7 egg yolks and 130 g of sugar and the seeds of half a vanilla pod. Reserve.
Mix the cornstarch with a little milk. Boil the milk. Add the whipping cream. Pour 1/3 of this hot liquid over the blanched yolks. Whisk.
Transfer everything to the saucepan of milk and heat over medium heat, constantly beating, until you obtain a cream.
Remove from the heat, add 30 g of fresh butter and mix to smooth the cream. Wrap the cream in plastic wrap, without leaving any air inside, and set aside in the refrigerator.
To make the Chantilly cream
In a bowl, whip 0.2 dL whipping cream and 10 g sugar. Gradually add the whipped cream to the pastry cream.
To prepare the puff pastry
Roll out the puff pastry. Cut two 20 cm discs. Inside the first disc, cut a 16 cm disc. Remove the disc located inside, so you get a ring and a 20 cm disc. Put them in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Using a brush, moisten the edge of the disc. Turn the ring a quarter of a turn and gently solder it onto the disc.
Using a brush, pass the beaten egg over the ring following the curve of the circle: avoid drips at the edges.
Reserve 15 minutes in the fridge, repeat the operation and put back 15 minutes in the fridge.
Bake the dough for 15 minutes at 180 ° C. The dough rose during cooking. Let cool.
To finish
Crush the pastry in the centre of the disc to form a well.
Place the cream in it until it forms a very light dome. You can use the rest of the cream to accompany the fruit.
Sprinkle generously with sugar and then brown using a caramelising iron or by placing under an oven grill.
Let rest. Repeat the operation a second time and serve.
