"Light it in the sacristy..."
"... say a brief rosary, then go to Mendl's and get me a Courtesan au Chocolat."
"If there's any money left, give it to the crippled shoeshine boy."
"Right away, sir."
Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to Binging with Babish.
Where this week, I'm extolling the virtues of yet another DVD special feature - that of The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Which outlines exactly how to make Courtesan au Chocolat - a pastry that's even fussier than it's own name.
First, we need to make some choux pastry.
We're going to start by melting together a stick of butter and a cup of water,
bringing it to a bare simmer, taking it off the heat and adding a cup of sifted flour.
Mix together with a wooden spoon and return to medium/low heat, mixing constantly until the dough forms a single mass.
Then remove from the heat and allow to cool just enough so that it won't cook the 4 beaten eggs that we're going to add slowly while mixing until a sticky, pipable paste forms.
I say "pipable" because that's exactly what we're going to do, we're going to pipe it.
Something that, if you can't tell, I'm not very good at.
We're gonna pipe these into 1 1/2 inch, 1 inch and 1/2 inch size dollops, and bake at 350°F for 25-35 minutes
While those bake, I wanted to show you guys something.
I got my first advanced copy of my book "Eat What You Watch" - a book that contains this very recipe.
As you can see, it also has some resplendent photography, block type faces and some fan favourite recipes like Pasta Aglio e Olio.
You can pre-order this now on Amazon, it comes out October 3rd.
Anyway, back to our Courtesan au Chocolat.
Our choux pastry puffs have come out of the oven.
We're going to immediately poke some holes in the bottom using a paring knife
This is going to help steam escape, resulting in a lighter, more ethereal pastry.
Then while those cool completely, we're going to make our fillings and frostings.
Let's start with our chocolate creme patissiere.
In a medium bowl, we're combining a 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tbsp of all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp corn starch, and 3 large egg yolks.
Just saying "creme pat" is making me worried that Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood are going to come around the corner and tell me that it's too loose or too thin.
So I've got to make sure not to mess this up.
Get 2 cups of whole milk steaming, not boiling, but just steaming warm enough to melt 8oz of really, really good chocolate.
Make sure you use very high quality chocolate because it is the most important part of this recipe.
Once the chocolate is all steaming hot and melted, it's time to add it bit by bit to our egg and sugar mixture.
Whisking constantly to make sure that the eggs don't cook.
Once the eggs have been tempered, we can add the rest of the chocolate mixture back to our saucepan and cook over medium/low heat until the mixture is thick and custardy and can coat the back of a spoon - like so.
The creme patissiere then has to cool completely before we can pipe it into our choux pastry.
So, pour into a bowl and cover with a layer of plastic wrap, pressing the plastic down onto the surface of the chocolate.
Refrigerate for a bare minimum of 2 hours.
Plenty of time to make 2 different kinds and 4 different colours of frosting.
First up is the glaze.
We're going to start with 1 cup of confectioner's sugar, slowly whisking in whole milk until a pourable frosting forms that we're then going to colour pink, green and purple.
Now, keep in mind that you can add more confectioner's sugar to any of these at any given time.
You want a glaze that is thick enough to hold its place on top of the pastry without running down the sides too much.
For the structural frosting, we're going to combine 4 tbsp of melted butter, 2 cups of confectioner's sugar and just a hint of whole milk, creating a thick, sturdy frosting that we're going to colour a pale blue.
Because just like an actual Wes Anderson movie, this whole thing needs to be covered in muted pastels.
Start by glazing the choux and once the glaze has hardened, pipe the thing full of creme pat, creating profiteroles.
The largest puff is purple, the second largest is green and the littlest one is pink.
We're then going to decorate with a filigree of melted white chocolate - something that a ham-fisted, hairy-knuckled oaf like me has a hard time doing.
We're then going to decoratively frost the top of each profiterole with the blue structural frosting and stack them one on top of the other until they precariously form a decorative tower.
On top of which, we're going to place a single cocoa bean that we're then immediately going to eat because we want to try and fail to get a cross-section of this twee little mountain of indulgence.
The whole thing is really cloyingly sweet and takes way too much effort to make.
That being said, it's absolutely perfect for 2017 Fussy Foodie Film Festival.