Welcome to Bon Appétit Bake Club, a community of curious bakers. Each month senior test kitchen editors Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic share a must-make recipe and dive deep on why it works. Come bake and learn with us—ask questions, share pics, listen to our podcast, and lots more here. And don’t forget to join the Bake Club Group chat over on Substack.
For those uninitiated with the magic of Paris-Brest, let us enlighten you. It is a classic French dessert created in the early 20th century to commemorate the bicycle race connecting Paris and Brest. It’s traditionally composed of a giant wreath made of pâte à choux (the same dough used to make eclairs and cream puffs) and a praline crème mousseline. The ring bakes and expands dramatically in the oven; once it’s removed and cooled completely, the ring is sliced in half and filled with a light and fluffy cream. It’s a showstopping dessert that can’t help but take center stage. This version, an ode to the classic, imbues it with notes of ripe banana and salty-sweet candied nuts for a fun take on banana pudding.
The dessert is essentially three separate recipes: The first, the choux, is a simple yet hardworking dough that gets cooked both on the stovetop and in the oven. The initial stovetop cooking step helps the dough puff in the oven, so don’t skip it. And piping the dough into connected puffs in lieu of one continuous ring allows guests to pull off just the right amount with ease. The banana cream filling gets its bold flavor by steeping the peels (yes, the peels!) in milk before turning it into a pastry cream and lightening it with whipped cream, a concoction known as diplomat cream. To finish it off, candied nuts—made by coating pecans in whipped egg white and sugar, then baking them until crisp—adds a welcomed crunch. (But feel free to use 1 cup store-bought candied nuts to make life easier.) It’s no doubt a project, but you can make one or all of the components at least a day before to get ahead.
