The Grand Budapest Hotel: A Pastry Tutorial

This week, I am extolling the virtues of yet another DVD special feature that showcases exactly how to make car design for The Grand Budapest Hotel. However, as it turns out, this tutorial is actually about making pastry. Specifically, we're going to make some choux pastry, which is even fussier than its own name suggests. We'll start by melting together a stick of butter and a cup of water, bringing it to a fair simmer on the stovetop before taking it off the heat and adding a cup of sifted flour mixed together with a wooden spoon.

We return to medium-low heat and mix constantly until the dough forms a single mass. Then, we remove from the heat and allow to cool just enough so that it won't cook when we add the beaten eggs later on. We'll slowly whisk in four beaten eggs while mixing until a sticky pipeable paste forms. And indeed, we are going to pipe this into one and a half inch, one inch, and 1/2 inch sized olives – because that's exactly what we're going to do.

As I'm struggling to create these puffed pastry shapes, I wanted to show you guys something I got my first advance copy of my book II. This is a book that contains this very recipe, among other things. You can see it for yourself in the accompanying photo – it also has some resplendent photography and block typefaces. And, as an added bonus, it features fan favorite recipes like pasta or Leo's famous spaghetti dish. Pre-order your copy now; it comes out on October 3rd.

Now that our choux pastry puffs have come out of the oven, we're going to immediately poke some holes in them using a paring knife. This will help steam escape, resulting in a lighter, more ethereal pastry. As those cool completely, we'll make our fillings and frostings. Let's start with our chocolate creme patissière. In a medium bowl, we combine 1/4 cup of sugar, tablespoon of all-purpose flour, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of cornstarch. We then add three large egg yolks – just saying, I'm making you worry that the creme fat is going to be too loose or too thin, so we need to make sure not to mess this up.

We get two cups of whole milk steaming, not boiling but just warm enough to melt 8 ounces of really, really good chocolate. Make sure you use very high-quality chocolate, because it's the most important part of this recipe. Once the chocolate is all steaming hot and melted, we add it bit by bit to our egg and sugar mixture while whisking constantly to temper the eggs. Now that 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 too thick and custardy and can coat the back spoon.

The creme patissière then has to cool completely before we can pipe it into our choux pastry. We pour it into a bowl and cover with a layer of plastic wrap, pressing the plastic down under the surface of the chocolate refrigerate for at least two hours. Now that the crème au chocolat has cooled, we're ready to move on to our frostings.

First up is the glaze – we'll start by whisking together a cup of confectioner's sugar slowly with whole milk until a pourable frosting forms. We can then color this glaze pink, green, and purple because, just like an actual Wes Anderson movie, this entire thing needs to be covered in muted pastels.

For our structural frosting, we combine four tablespoons of melted butter, 2 cups of confectioner's sugar, and just a hint of whole milk creating a thick, sturdy frosting that we'll use to color a pale blue. We start by glazing the choux pastry, once the glaze has hardened, we pipe it full of creme patissière, filling each one with different colors – Federal's the largest puff is purple, the second-largest is green, and the littlest one is pink.

We then decorate our profiteroles with a filigree of melted white chocolate – something that I'm not very good at creating. Finally, we frost the top of each profiterole with blue structural frosting and stack them one on top of the other until they precariously form a decorative Tower on top of which we place a single Coke. And, because we want to try and fail to get a cross-section of this twee little mountain of indulgence, we immediately go ahead and eat it – for us, that's all there is to this sweet, fussy pastry adventure.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enlight it in the sacristy say a brief rosaries and go to Mendel's and get me a cortisone or shock Allah 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 we're this week I am extolling the virtues of yet another DVD special feature that of the grand Budapest hotel which outlines exactly how to make car design I'll shuck a lot a pastry that's even fussier than its own name first we need to make some choux pastry we're gonna start by melting together a stick of butter and a cup of water bringing it to a fair simmer taking it off the heat and adding a cup of sifted flour mixed 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 four beaten eggs that we're going to add slowly while mixing until a sticky pipeable paste forms I say pipe a wolf because that's exactly what we're gonna do we're gonna pipe it something that if you can't tell I'm not very good at we're gonna pipe these into one and a half inch one inch and 1/2 inch sized olives and bake at 350 for 25 to 35 minutes while those bake I wanted to show you guys something I got my first advance copy of my book II what you watch a book that contains this very recipe as you can see it also has some resplendent photography block typefaces and some fan favorite recipes like pasta or Leo you can pre-order this now in Amazon it comes at October 3rd anyway back to our courtesan au chocolat our the choux pastry puffs have come out of the oven we're going to immediately poke some holes on 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 impetu CA in a medium bowl we're combining 1/4 cup sugar tablespoon of all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch and 3 large egg yolks just saying creme fat is making me worried that Mary Barry and Paul Hollywood come around the corner and tell me that it's too loose or too thin so got to make sure not to mess this up get two cups of whole milk steaming not boiling but just steaming warm enough to melt 8 ounces 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 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 what's 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 too thick and custardy and can coat the back spoon like so the crumpets a CA 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 under the surface of the chocolate refrigerate for a bare minimum of two hours plenty of time to make two different kinds and four different colors of frosting first up is the glaze we're gonna start with a cup of confectioner's sugar slowly whisking in whole milk until a pourable frosting forms that were then going to color pink green and purple now keep in mind you can add more confectioner sugar to any of these at any given time you want a glaze that is thick enough to hold this place on top of the pastry without running down the sides too much for these structural frosting we're going to combine four tablespoons 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 color 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 / Federal's 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 Perry knuckled both like me has a hard time doing we're then going to decoratively frost the top of each profiterole would be 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 coke 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 clearly sweet and takes way too much effort to make that being said it's absolutely perfect for the 2017 fussy foodie Film Festivallight it in the sacristy say a brief rosaries and go to Mendel's and get me a cortisone or shock Allah 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 we're this week I am extolling the virtues of yet another DVD special feature that of the grand Budapest hotel which outlines exactly how to make car design I'll shuck a lot a pastry that's even fussier than its own name first we need to make some choux pastry we're gonna start by melting together a stick of butter and a cup of water bringing it to a fair simmer taking it off the heat and adding a cup of sifted flour mixed 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 four beaten eggs that we're going to add slowly while mixing until a sticky pipeable paste forms I say pipe a wolf because that's exactly what we're gonna do we're gonna pipe it something that if you can't tell I'm not very good at we're gonna pipe these into one and a half inch one inch and 1/2 inch sized olives and bake at 350 for 25 to 35 minutes while those bake I wanted to show you guys something I got my first advance copy of my book II what you watch a book that contains this very recipe as you can see it also has some resplendent photography block typefaces and some fan favorite recipes like pasta or Leo you can pre-order this now in Amazon it comes at October 3rd anyway back to our courtesan au chocolat our the choux pastry puffs have come out of the oven we're going to immediately poke some holes on 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 impetu CA in a medium bowl we're combining 1/4 cup sugar tablespoon of all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch and 3 large egg yolks just saying creme fat is making me worried that Mary Barry and Paul Hollywood come around the corner and tell me that it's too loose or too thin so got to make sure not to mess this up get two cups of whole milk steaming not boiling but just steaming warm enough to melt 8 ounces 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 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 what's 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 too thick and custardy and can coat the back spoon like so the crumpets a CA 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 under the surface of the chocolate refrigerate for a bare minimum of two hours plenty of time to make two different kinds and four different colors of frosting first up is the glaze we're gonna start with a cup of confectioner's sugar slowly whisking in whole milk until a pourable frosting forms that were then going to color pink green and purple now keep in mind you can add more confectioner sugar to any of these at any given time you want a glaze that is thick enough to hold this place on top of the pastry without running down the sides too much for these structural frosting we're going to combine four tablespoons 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 color 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 / Federal's 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 Perry knuckled both like me has a hard time doing we're then going to decoratively frost the top of each profiterole would be 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 coke 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 clearly sweet and takes way too much effort to make that being said it's absolutely perfect for the 2017 fussy foodie Film Festival\n"