Saint-Honoré cake

1. Soak gelatin in cold water.

2. Prepare the custard. Pour the milk and half of the cream into a saucepan. Cut the vanilla pod in half lengthwise. Scrape the seeds with a knife and add them, along with the pod, to the saucepan. Keep the mixture on medium heat for 5-7 minutes.

3. In the meantime, beat the yolks with sugar and starch until the sugar is completely dissolved. In a thin stream, pour boiling milk with cream and a pinch of salt into the lush yolk mass. Pour the resulting mass back into the saucepan, put on a quiet fire and cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens to the consistency of condensed milk. In no case do not bring to a boil, otherwise the cream will curdle.

4. Remove the finished custard from the heat and remove the vanilla pod. Cool slightly and add squeezed gelatin. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.

5. Beat the softened butter with a mixer until white, mix with the cooled custard and put in the refrigerator.

6. For the choux pastry, combine water, milk, butter, sugar and salt in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to a minimum and add the sifted flour, constantly stirring the mass with a wooden spatula. Add 1-2 eggs and stir the mixture until smooth. In the same way, add the rest of the eggs, each time kneading the dough thoroughly. It should turn out shiny, without lumps, the consistency of thick sour cream. Remove from fire and cool.

7. For the base of the cake, slightly roll out the puff pastry with a rolling pin and cut out a circle with a diameter of 22-25 cm using a pastry ring. Prick it often with a fork so that the dough does not rise. Using a pastry bag, spread half of the choux pastry on the puff pastry, moving from the center to the edge in a spiral.

8. Put the base of the cake and the rest of the puff pastry on a baking sheet covered with parchment and bake in an oven preheated to 170-180 ° C for 30-35 minutes. Never open the oven.

9. Cover the finished cake with a towel and cool. Make crumbs out of puff pastry scraps by rubbing them with your hands.

10. Whip the remaining cream into a fluffy mass and combine it with half of the custard. Stir until smooth and refrigerate.

11. For profiteroles on a parchment-lined baking sheet, use a spoon or a pastry bag at a distance of 3-4 cm from each other to place balls of choux pastry the size of a walnut. Put in an oven preheated to 180 ° C for 25-30 minutes. Do not open the oven during baking. Ready profiteroles cool

12. Prepare caramel. Pour sugar into a pan, add water and lemon juice and place over medium heat. Cook without stirring until the sugar begins to melt. Then reduce the heat to a minimum and keep on fire until the sugar is completely melted and the caramel is golden.

13. Coat the profiteroles with caramel. To do this, dip the top of the profiteroles in caramel, carefully place them with the glazed side up and cool.

14. To prepare the caramel web, dip the tips of the prongs of the fork into the hot caramel. Pull the thin caramel threads formed on the teeth onto a plate to make a cobweb out of them.

15. Assemble the cake. Put the finished cake on a flat plate. Apply a layer of custard on it (without cream), and lay glazed profiteroles along the contour of the cake. Using a pastry bag, squeeze the custard with whipped cream into the center of the cake. Put the cake in the refrigerator and let it soak for 2-3 hours.

16. Before serving, sprinkle everything with puff pastry crumbs, powdered sugar and garnish with caramel cobwebs.