A huge proponent of this dessert’s inspiration came from milkshake and fries; I just love something crispy and fried and something reminiscent of ice cream. I wanted to do a play on that, but using something that is traditionally a dessert, so in this case, pets de nonne. Now for the 90% of the world that don’t know what these are (this 90% included me up until like a month ago, so don’t feel bad about yourself, or do, because it doesn’t matter, as once you finish reading my recipe, you’ll know what these are and you can welcome yourself to being in the 10%), they are fried balls of pate choux. Pate choux is cream puff dough. Now if you don’t know that, then we might have a problem here, but I’ll reserve my judgement because I don’t know you personally and you might be a good person who just doesn’t know pate choux, and not some ignorant person much like those people I went to high school with who I could frankly give two flying fucks about. Pate choux dough is also used to make churros, so in a way, you can imagine little churro balls, and that’s what pets de nonne are. The best part about them are what their name translates to. It’s either the nun’s puff, or my personal favorite, nun’s farts. The French have finally provided weirdos in our world a way out if they public profess to having a love of nun’s farts. Thank you for that.

My weird tangents aside, let’s get back to the article here. For the pets de nonne, I wanted to drizzle them in a honey salted caramel, just because I love salted caramel, and honey adds such a beautiful fragrant note to it, especially mesquite honey, which I used. I wanted honey, which is an ingredient that comforts me, to be prominent in the entire dessert, so I also included it in my milkshake. For the milkshake, it started with the ice cream base for my honey-bee pollen ice cream, but rather than just make it into an ice cream, I wanted to make a milkshake. I combine the honey and bee pollen with ovaltine, which has malt notes that compliment honey, and chocolate, which works well with ovaltine. The end result is a delicious, addictive, smoky, and bittersweet chocolate beverage that I would gladly push a bitch off a cliff to drink. The contrast of rich, smooth chocolate and crunchy pate choux and salted caramel is a really fun combination, and something that I will probably continue to make and enjoy in between intervals of long distance running, because otherwise I would just get really, really, really fat.

For pets de nonne:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour + more for coating
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons honey
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
canola oil for frying

Melt down butter, honey, and milk together. Bring to a simmer. Add in the flour and stir. Once the mixture becomes a dough, continue to stir over medium heat until the exterior of the dough forms a shiny coat. Remove and allow the mixture to cool. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Get the oil to 350 degrees F in the mean time. Spoon about 2 teaspoon-sized balls of dough and coat lightly in all-purpose flour, rolling them to get them smooth. Fry these balls for 3 minutes. Drain the pets de nonne on a paper towel.

For the caramel:
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons heavy cream or milk

Melt down the honey, sugar, salt, and water. Once the mixture begins to brown, add in the butter and milk. Stir together over medium-low heat until the sugar is melted into the milk or cream. Strain out lumps. Keep lukewarm.

For chocolate-honey milkshake:
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons ovaltine
1/4 cup honey-bee pollen creme anglaise*
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Heat up milk and ovaltine. Once the milk comes up to a simmer, take off heat and add in the chocolate chips. Stir ingredients until they form together into a homogenous mixture, strain, and freeze. Once the mixture is frozen solid, puree the frozen base in a food processor or blender, adding in the creme anglaise to thin it out, and serve immediately.

For honey-bee pollen creme anglaise
1/2 cup milk
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup honey
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bee pollen

Melt down the bee pollen into the milk and bring to a simmer. Temper the milk into hone, salt, and egg yolk. Whip over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes, and strain.

For plating:
Stack up the pets de nonne on your plate and drizzle with the salted caramel. Serve with the milkshake.