Tarte Tropézienne

A sugar-crusted brioche split horizontally while completely cold and filled with pastry cream lightened with whipped cream.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (double cream), dairy (milk).

Ingredients

For the brioche

• 1 batch brioche dough, as on its own page
• 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk, to glaze
• 80 g pearl sugar, or crushed sugar cubes

For the filling

• 1 batch crème pâtissière, as on its own page, cold
• 300 ml double cream
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon orange blossom water

Method

1. THE BRIOCHE IS SPLIT HORIZONTALLY WHILE IT IS COMPLETELY COLD, and several hours cold rather than an hour. Warm brioche is elastic: the knife drags, the crumb compresses ahead of the blade and the two halves come apart uneven, with the sugar crust shedding off the top. Cold, a long serrated knife goes through it cleanly in one sawing pass. Bake it the day before if you can.
2. THE PEARL SUGAR GOES ON AFTER THE PROVE, NOT BEFORE. Scattered on before proving, it dissolves into the wet dough and disappears. On at the last moment, pressed lightly into the glaze, it stays as whole crunchy grains, which is half of what this cake is.
3. THE FILLING IS PASTRY CREAM LIGHTENED WITH WHIPPED CREAM, not either one alone. Pastry cream by itself is too dense and too heavy to bite through in a brioche; whipped cream by itself weeps into the crumb within the hour. Folded together they pipe, hold, and cut.
4. AND IT IS FILLED NO MORE THAN TWO HOURS BEFORE IT IS EATEN. Brioche against cream goes soggy from the inside, and the bottom half is the first to go.
5. Brioche dough made as on its own page, through its overnight cold rise.
6. Shaped as a single flat round about 22 cm across and 3 cm deep on a lined tray.
7. Proved 2 to 3 hours at warm room temperature until puffy and slow to spring back.
8. Glazed carefully, then the PEARL SUGAR scattered over and pressed in very lightly.
9. Baked at 180C for 25 to 30 minutes until deep gold and hollow underneath. Covered with foil if the sugar is colouring too fast.
10. COOLED COMPLETELY, and ideally left overnight.
11. Crème pâtissière made as on its own page, chilled and whisked smooth. The orange blossom water beaten in.
12. The double cream whipped with the icing sugar to firm peaks and folded into it in two lots.
13. The brioche split horizontally with a long serrated knife, sawing gently, and the top set aside.
14. The filling piped onto the base in close rounds, right to the edge, the top laid back on, and chilled 1 hour. Cut with a serrated knife.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes