SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Saint-Honoré
Saint-Honoré
Assembling a puff pastry base, small choux and cream
Cakes ／ France
Dry pastry, light choux, thin caramel and soft cream are combined in a single round cake. The Saint-Honoré is a Parisian pastry that lets you enjoy these different textures all at once. Small choux are fixed with caramel around the edge of a flat base, and cream is piped into the center. It is a pastry shaped by successive refinements for piping soft cream decoratively and getting it to the table before the dry pastry turns soggy.
From brioche to a base of puff pastry or pâte brisée
At Chiboust’s shop on Rue Saint-Honoré in 19th-century Paris, brioche filled with cream is said to have been made at first. Soft dough quickly turns soggy from the moisture in the filling. The form handed down as a revision by Auguste Julien, who worked at the shop, and his brothers combined choux with a flat base of puff pastry or pâte brisée. Small choux came to be arranged around a dry base, with the cream mounded inside them.
The “flan suisse” of Bordeaux also appears in this history. The story goes that Julien traveled to Toulouse and Bordeaux, made the pastry he brought back at Chiboust’s shop, and named it after the street. There is the year 1840, as reported in Lacam’s pastry book, and 1847, as presented by the Ministry of Agriculture and others, so accounts of when it originated differ. Along with the story of adopting a pastry found on his travels, an account of improving it with a base less prone to becoming soggy from the cream has also been handed down.
A name from Rue Saint-Honoré and the patron saint of bakers and pastry cooks
The pastry’s name is said to come from Rue Saint-Honoré, where the shop stood. Saint Honoré, who bears the same name, is the patron saint of bakers and pastry cooks, and a print depicting him is held in the collections of the Paris city museums. The pastry’s name thus has two connections: the shop’s location and the patron saint of its craftspeople.
Forming the ring with individual choux
In one method, when the flat base is baked, a ring of choux paste is piped around its outer edge and baked with it. In Chef Philippe’s chocolate Saint-Honoré, for example, choux paste is piped onto a sablé disk, and the bottoms of separately baked and filled small choux are attached with caramel to the cooled ring. It is a two-tier structure: a continuous baked ring below and individual small choux lined up on top of it. There are also methods that fix the small choux directly to a flat base such as puff pastry, so even when the appearance is similar, the way they are attached to the base differs. The outline of one large cake is created by the handwork of arranging small pastries.
Coating the tops of the small choux with caramel forms a thin, hard, glossy layer on the surface. The cream inside, the dry shell and the caramel shell are each prepared at different temperatures and through different processes. After assembly, humidity and the moisture in the cream change the texture, so the timing of the finishing also has to be adjusted.
Some current methods change the base to a sweet dough containing hazelnuts or use chantilly in the center. With these methods, too, the pastry absorbs moisture once it is combined with cream, so the texture changes depending on when it is finished.
Using egg whites and gelatin to keep the cream’s shape
The cream has also changed according to the season and where it was sold. In an account traced from 19th-century pastry books by Hervé This, who studies the mechanisms of cooking and historical documents, it is recorded that, because good cream was hard to obtain, especially in summer, part of it was replaced with egg whites to keep the cream firm, and gelatin was added for sale in shops. The name Chiboust, tied to a shop, is also the name of a cream whose formula has been changed according to the season and selling time.
The Chiboust cream in the center combines meringue with a custard cooked from eggs and milk. It differs from chantilly, which is made of whipped cream alone, in the ingredient used to incorporate air.
One recette (the formula of ingredients and the method) that combines Italian meringue with custard also adds gelatin to help it hold its shape. One-third of the hot milk is mixed into the yolk mixture, which is then returned to the pan; it is stirred for 2–3 minutes after coming to a boil, then taken off the heat and combined with butter and softened gelatin.
For the meringue, the egg whites start being whipped when the sugar syrup reaches 110°C, and the syrup is poured in a thin stream at 121°C. Rather than leaving a finished foam to sit for long, the syrup’s temperature and the whipping are managed in parallel. When combining, one-third of the meringue is mixed thoroughly into the custard, and the rest is folded in with a spatula so as not to deflate the foam.
When made with this formula, the cream is piped as soon as it is finished and then chilled. The stages follow one after another: cooking the custard, making the foam with sugar syrup, combining the two and shaping, which differs from methods in which the cream is chilled first and then piped.
Piping the cream in folds with a special tip
The pastry bag holding the cream is sometimes fitted with a slit Saint-Honoré tip. Its shape allows fan-like folds to be piped in the center. The chantilly piped in the center in late-19th-century methods and the Chiboust containing meringue may be piped in similar outlines, but their foam comes from different sources. Filling the gaps between the small choux around the edge and folding the cream in the center creates soft undulations on the flat base. When to fill the cream is also a question of the finished result, carried over from the sogginess of the early brioche.
Saint-Honorés with cloud-shaped bases or plant-based ingredients
Puratos presents a variety of Saint-Honorés with different bases and creams. Some combine a sweet base containing hazelnuts with choux filled with praliné cream and a vanilla cream, while others pipe chantilly onto laminated dough cut into a cloud shape. Today, the shape of the base varies as well.
The company also presents a Saint-Honoré in which the fats and cream are replaced with plant-based ingredients. It keeps the combination of the choux shape, hard caramel and soft cream while changing the ingredients. Even when they look similar, they differ in the type of cream, the pastry of the base and the filling of the choux.
Glossary
- Lacam
- A 19th-century French pastry cook and author of pastry books. He recorded Julien’s travels and the history dating to 1840.
- Hervé This
- A French researcher who studies the mechanisms of cooking and historical documents. He examined how the creams appearing in pastry books changed over time.
- Pâte brisée
- A dough made by mixing fat and other ingredients into flour and bringing it together, used for tart bases and the like.
- Chiboust
- A cream that combines custard with meringue; also the Parisian pastry cook associated with the name.
- Auguste Julien
- A pastry cook said to have worked at Chiboust’s shop and, after setting up on his own, to have revised the pastry’s base and outer ring.
- Saint Honoré
- The patron saint of bakers and pastry cooks. A pastry shop stood on the street bearing his name.
- Saint-Honoré tip
- A piping tip with a slit on one side. It creates folded outlines in the central cream.
- Chantilly
- Whipped cream with sugar or flavorings added.
- Italian meringue
- A meringue made by pouring hot sugar syrup into beaten egg whites.
- Puratos
- A company that supplies bakery and pastry ingredients and publishes example creations and recettes for professionals.
- Praliné
- A pastry ingredient made by heating nuts and sugar and then crushing them, among other steps.
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