I made this dessert for my friends’ highbrow-lowbrow caviar night. We sometimes do this thing where we buy caviar to be bougie, and pair it with fancy things(like champagne and charcuterie) or less fancy things(like chips and fried chicken). In my case, I wanted to go the fancy route, since I am a bougie bitch feel that caviar, being something so celebrated in French cooking, I wanted to honor that with a French classic. When it comes to pairing caviar with a dessert, you need that dessert to be light, mellow, sweet, and/or acidic flavors to work with the saline notes of the caviar. For anyone who has never had caviar before, it is kind of like popping boba, but with bursts of saltiness, brininess, and a little sweetness. It can taste fishy to people who aren’t used to eating it/if the caviar itself is not really, really fresh, so I find that pairing it with acid, a life hack that works with all seafood, is the best way to make the caviar palatable to anyone. I have done a caviar dessert in the past, but I wanted this one to be a different from that previous recipe. For the base of the recipe, I wanted to do pate choux of some sort, because buttery, light, and crispy pastry with a creamy filling fits the description of what I was going for this. Pate choux is a dough/batter that is used to make desserts such as cream puffs and eclairs. Some more unique usages for pate choux include doughnuts and parisian gnocchi, which is why I love this dough; it has so much versatility and can be used in sweet or savory applications! In the case for what recipe I landed on, I went with Paris Brest. Paris Brest is essentially a large, ring-shaped eclair, and traditionally filled with a combination of mousseline and ganache usually. It is a classic French dessert, and one that I felt would work perfectly for this highbrow-lowbrow occasion!

The last time I made a Paris Brest was actually when I was on Masterchef: Back to Win, where we had to pick then replicate a dessert from a table. I got 3rd to last pick, and my options were Paris Brest, Sticky Toffee Pudding, and Chocolate-Ricotta cake. I opted to make Paris Brest for a few reasons. The first was that the judges kept hamming up how difficult it was; during season 10, I took a safe-r route by choosing an easier cake for that season’s dessert replication challenge, so this time around, I did not want to choose a dessert that the judges claimed to be easy. The second was that I literally made a (pumpkin-flavored) Paris Brest about two weeks before I left to film Back to Win, so I actually had a pretty decent muscle memory on how to do it. I first heard of Paris Brest back in high school, because I watched the shoujo baking anime, Yumeiro Patissiere. While they did not air the actual critiques on my Paris Brest, the judges give feedback to every contestant after every challenge(after the person is eliminated). In my case, they told me I nailed it(I personally thought mine came out larger than the example, which is why it failed as a replication, but the judges did not specify that as the reason I did not land top 3), so I was left in a weird limbo feeling of “yay, I did not flop on this Paris Brest” but also “the Internet is going to say I’m overrated for not at least coming in the top 3 for a baking challenge”. After stewing about that challenge, I started to feel a little less invested in what people thought of me. I know I’m a talented baker, and I don’t need faceless keyboard warriors hiding behind screen names validating or discrediting that. So in a lot of ways, Paris Brest is the dessert that helped me be fully at peace with how I am perceived. But that gigantic tangent and tirade to say, Paris Brest marked a new point in my life that I really have not looked back from.

For this recipe, I wanted to use two distinct flavors: tonka bean and yuzu. Both ingredients represent expensive, high class, and can be used to really make any dessert fancy or classy. Tonka bean is like a vanilla bean, but with notes of almond, cherry, and cocoa. What I like about tonka is that it needs to be used subtly; too much tonka bean can be overwhelming, which is why you need just a small, small amount of it to really flavor a dessert with it. With yuzu, it is a Japanese citrus that kind of tastes like all of the citrus combined, but most similar to your classic lemon. Fresh yuzu is really hard to come by in the States; usually only available during the winter, fresh yuzu in my local Japanese market can cost anywhere from $6-$12 apiece, and they are not that large. However, processed yuzu, like yuzu juice, yuzu jam, or Yuzu Inspiration(yuzu-flavored white chocolate) are easier to find, but they aren’t cheap by any means. However, yuzu, being this bright, tart, and acidic ingredient, will play off the caviar nicely, while the tonka bean gives that dessert-y accent to the whole Paris Brest, so that if one wants to eat this with caviar, they totally can and it will translate to a dessert with pleasant pops of salt! With the components, we have the Paris Brest itself, a tonka bean-white chocolate namelaka(whipped ganache meets a mousse), and yuzu curd. You have creamy, fragrant, zesty, and acidic with the various components, accompanying a light, crisp, and buttery pastry for a really well rounded dessert experience! This dessert combines a French classic with some more modern ingredients and Japanese techniques, resulting in something perfect for a special occasion(in this case, caviar night with friends).

Makes 2 Paris Brest or 16 servings:
For the pate choux:
1 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 egg white
a pinch of salt

In a pot, bring water, butter, and sugar to a boil. Once the butter is fully melted into the water, add to that the flour, stirring everything until combined into a large, glossy dough ball. Allow the dough to cool off heat in a bowl before adding to it the other ingredients to form your pate choux batter. Transfer the batter to a piping bag. Pipe the choux dough into 8 inch hoops. Then pipe another round of the dough into the interior side of each hoop. Finally, pipe another round of the batter on top of the two hoops. Bake the choux dough at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes, then at 350 degrees F for another 15 minutes before carefully removing it from the oven and allowing it to fully cool before using.

For the tonka bean-white chocolate namelaka:
4oz white chocolate
8oz heavy cream, in two parts
a pinch of salt
2 tsps gelatin powder + 2 tbsp cold water
1g grated tonka bean

In a pot on medium heat, melt down the white chocolate with one part of the cream, a pinch of salt, and the gelatin powder and grated tonka bean, stirring constantly to prevent the bottom of the pot from burning. Allow the mixture to cool down in the refrigerator for 1 hour, and then mix in the remaining heavy cream using a rubber spatula. Transfer to a piping bag with a star tip.

For the yuzu curd:
1oz yujacha(yuzu marmalade/citron jam)
1 tbsp cornstarch
a pinch of salt
1 tsp gelatin powder + 2 tbsp cold water
1.5oz yuzu juice
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp unsalted butter

In a blender, puree everything besides the egg yolk and butter until a smooth mixture forms. Pour the liquid into a pot and bring up to a simmer over low heat. Pour half of the liquid over the egg yolk while whisking the egg yolk. Then pour the egg yolk back into the pot and whisk everything on low heat for 2-3 minutes. Take the pot off heat and whisk in the butter, stirring until the butter is fully melted in. Pass the curd through a sieve to remove any lumps.

For assembly:
Cut the Paris Brests in half horizontally(think hamburger bun). Pipe the namelaka into the bottom half of the Paris Brest, then the yuzu curd as well. Place the top half of the Paris Brest back on top and brush any leftover yuzu curd on top to finish.