St. Honore’s Pie is a rich and complicated dessert made with potato pate, Bavarian cream, and rum. It is a specialty of Italian and French bakeries and is often served for special occasions. Creating it requires skill and time, making it best left to skilled pastry chefs.
St. Honore’s Pie is an extremely complicated dessert not to be attempted by the faint-hearted pastry chef. Named for the French patron saint of bakers, St. Honore is nonetheless a specialty of many Italian and French bakeries. The cake is mostly served for special occasions and is a rich, buttery combination of pastry, Bavarian cream and rum.
The base of a St. Honore pie is made from potato pate, a French pastry dough that’s simply a combination of flour, butter, salt, and ice water. The base is filled with custard or Bavarian cream, often thickened with gelatin or cornstarch and heavily infused with rum. Italian versions of the cake may also use Marsala wine as a flavoring instead of or in addition to the rum. This liquid concoction can be quite potent and can give a boozy buzz to those who return for a few seconds. Atop the cream filling is a layer of choux pastry, a light dough often used for beignets and profiteroles.
Surrounding the main cake are cream puffs, filled with custard or whipped cream and dipped in a thin caramel, making them similar to croquembouche. The cream puff filling may also be flavored, usually with more rum or vanilla. The top of the cake is decorated with whipped cream and often frosted cherries, a finishing touch on a pastry masterpiece.
Creating your own St. Honore is a daring undertaking that takes time and is best left to the extremely skilled pastry chefs. In addition to easily burnt cream fillings, it is necessary to prepare both potato pate and choux, which alone require quite a lot of time. This cake is truly a special occasion dessert, perfect for events where chocolate or vanilla just won’t go far enough. Unless you have plenty of time on your hands and no fears when it comes to baking, check out local cake shops and bakeries to see where you can find authentic St. Honore pie.
The pliability of the dough and most puffs make the St. Honore pie quite large. Though only a single layer, these cakes can easily be made to serve 100 people. They can make a spectacular tiered wedding cake, with both the main cake and the surrounding puffs easily accommodating a large gathering of people.
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