Prue Leith’s Puits d’Amours Pastry with American Measurements
Hold on to your hats bakers, this week’s baking challenge on the Great British Baking Show Bake-Along is a wild one! You’re going to be making rough puff pastry dough, choux dough, creme pat, and compote, yes we’re making Prue Leith’s Puits d’Amours Pastry!
Prue Leith’s Puits d’Amours Pastry with American Measurements
Don’t you worry though, I’ve spent all week working on this recipe for the Well of Love Pastry AND converted it to American Measurements for anyone who DOES NOT have a scale for baking.
You’re going to need this too because wow this recipe is a ton of work, but the taste is ALL WORTH IT!
Puits d’Amour A GBBO Technical Bake
These Puits d’Amours are a Technical Bake for Pastry Week. The “bakers in the tent” can choose to use this shortened recipe for the Puits d’Amour:
- make rough puff pastry
- then make creme pat
- make strawberry compote
- and finally, make choux dough
- cut 9 4 inch circles from the puff pastry dough and chill
- pipe a circle of choux dough inside the circle
- bake until done
- cool
- fill with compote
- top with a creme pat
- crisp top with a baking torch
OR you can use Prue’s recipe found on the GBBO site.
Or use this slightly simplified version with American Measurements.
Please choose what suits you, this is a big bake, possibly the biggest we’ve done yet.
The Wells of Love Pastry
This recipe is complicated. And this is a simplified version of it too. It’s a lot more work than other challenges have been. And bigger.
In the show, there was so much speculation that the name “The Wells of Love” alludes to the female body. I don’t see that. But if you do, more power to you.
Initially, when made in its larger form, it was supposed to resemble a bucket from a well. Now THAT I can see. Is that the Wells of Love?
A few tips on Making Puits d’Amours
- parchment paper is nice for this recipe
- plan for several hours waiting, the puff pastry has to chill
- you will need a pastry bag and two piping tips, 1 cm and 1.5 cm-I used a “disposable bag” that I wash out and use repeatedly, for piping I cut it to 1 cm and then cut it bigger to 1.5 cm-it’s an easy piping job and could possibly be done using a heavy-duty Ziploc
- while the pastry is chilling all the other components except the choux dough can be made
- make sure your creme pat is very thick; mine wasn’t as thick as it should have been
- Prue’s recipe calls for demerara sugar which I couldn’t source locally and so left it off. You can find it on Amazon (affiliate link) I subbed in granulated sugar to sprinkle on top
- the creme pat needs to be caramelized, a baking torch is excellent, a blow torch will work and of course, NOT caramelizing is fine too!
GBBO Recipes with American Measurements
When we have a technical bake on the Bake-Along I like to have a recipe for everyone to use if they want it. In the past we’ve had Paul Hollywood’s Cottage Loaf and his Naan Bread. And Prue’s Pizza as well.
Time to add another recipe to the list! If you don’t have a scale it can be time-consuming and exasperating to convert a recipe. Having it done for you makes it so much easier. Remember to sift your flour before measuring as that is how I measure it too!
Prue Leith’s Puits d’Amours Pastry with American Measurements
Ingredients
Rough Puff Pastry
- 1 1/3 cup flour sifted then measure
- pinch salt
- 1/4 pound frozen butter
- 6-7 TBSP cold water
Pastry Cream
- 2 cups milk
- 1 vanilla bean
- 1/2 cup confectionors sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 3 1/2 TBSP butter
Strawberry Compote
- 2 cups frozen strawberries
- 1/3 cup frozen raspberries sub in more strawberries if needed
- 2 TBSP Sugar
- 1 TBSP lemon juice
Choux Dough
- 1/4 cup butter
- 2/3 cup water
- pinch salt
- 7 TBSP flour sifted before measuring
- 2 eggs beaten
Instructions
Rough Puff Pastry Dough
- mix the flour and the salt in a bowl
- grate the frozen butter directly in the bowl on the flour, stir with a knife
- add 6 TBSP cold water, keep stirring, if it comes together in a loose dough don't add more water if it doesn't add the last TBSP
- use a floured hand to bring it together in a ball, pat to 5×7 inch square wrap in plastic wrap and chill 30 minutes
- after 30 minutes roll out on a lightly floured surface to a rectangle 5 inches wide 14 inches long
- visualize the dough being bisected in thirds fold the bottom third over the middle third, fold the top down over that wrap and chill 30 minutes, repeat and wrap and chill again for 30 minutes or until needed
Pastry Cream
- while the rough puff is chilling make your pastry cream, warm 2 cups of milk over medium heat
- split a vanilla bean, scrape seeds in the milk, and drop it in the milk, or add 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- while the milk is warming mix the sugar, egg yolks and corn starch in a bowl
- once the milk is almost boiling add some of the hot milk to the egg mix and stir
- then tip it back in the sauce pan on the stove, cooking and stirring until it's very thick
- remove from the heat, stir in butter until it's melted
- pass it through a sieve to remove any lumps, cover and chill until ready to use when covering lay plastic wrap right ON the cream to avoid a skin
Strawberry Compote
- cook strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar together for 10 minutes
- add raspberries cook another 5-10 minutes
- don't let it get too thick, you just want the berries cooked through and the juice thickened up so it isn't runny
Puits d’Amour
- to make the Puits d’Amour, roll out the puff pastry dough to a 14-inch square and cut 9 4 inch circles out, place on parchment lined baking sheet and chill for 30 minutes
- preheat oven to 425˚
- make the choux dough by cooking butter salt and water together, once it boils add the flour and cook until it comes together in the center of the pan, remove from heat
- then add the eggs slowly until they're incorporated
- fit a pastry bag with a 1 cm (.39inch) tip, fill with choux dough
- remove the circles of pastry from the refrigerator
- pipe a circle of choux dough just inside the edge of the pastry dough
- brush with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar or demerara sugar if using
- bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until puffed, glossy and browned, do NOT open the oven to check on them until 20 minutes have passed or they could fall
- cool slightly and remove to wire rack to cool completley
- once cooled divide the compote between the wells of the 9 pastries
- fit a pastry bag with 1.5 cm tip, fill with pastry cream and pipe over the compote
- using a torch lightly brown the top of the creme pat, if you don’t have a blow torch you can easily skip this step
C&H sells Demara sugar now. I’ve seen it at both Kroger branches of Ralph’s and Fry’s.
We don’t have those up here. We have Fred’s and Safeway.
Can I make the rough puff a day ahead and refrigerate until bake day.?
I need two days to make.
Yes, the rough puff pastry dough for Puits d’Amours can be ahead of time, well wrapped and chilled until ready to use!
I don’t think the choux dough can though!