MENDL'S

Happy Saturday my birdies, 

I’m taking my time for this week, I find the time to write to you seated on a pile of moving boxes and yet I’m good, the desire to write to you is stronger! Especially as I have quite a lot in stock for you! Today I’m giving you a crazy recipe! Still for our theme week, I reinterpreted a major pastry of the movie. Indeed, Zero, the Lobby boy from the Grand Budapest Hotel falls deeply in love with Agatha, the pretty pastry chef from Mendl’s, who excels in the making of the house special « La courtisane au chocolat ». Okay, I admit I don’t really like chocolate, it really isn't my favorite, yes yes it is possible, but I make it up with lots of other things don’t worry… So here is my version of La courtisane au chocolat blanc!

For the base of your courtisane, here is a classic muffin recipe: (it makes approximatively 9 muffins, you’ll have leftovers for breakfast…)

• 3 eggs, 
• 100 g butter
• 180 g flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• 90 g sugar
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• 1 bag of yeast
• 1 cap of rose syrup.

Start with heating your oven at 200°C. Sieve the flour and the yeast altogether, put aside. Beat the eggs and add the sugar, the mix will whiten and when it does, add the milk, the salt and the rose syrup, then stir together well. Little by little add the powered mix, flour and yeast. To finish add the melted butter and stir together well until you get a smooth dough. Pour it to the 2/3 of your molds and bake for 10 minutes. Check the cooking with the tip of a knife.

 For the choux pastry:

• 150 g flour
• 75 g butter
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 L water
• 1 pinch of salt

Start with heating your oven at 190°C. In a saucepan, pour the water, the salt and butter and heat it up at medium heat. As soon as the liquid starts boiling and the butter is melted, take the mix off of the heat and add the flour in one time. Energetically stir together with a wooden spoon until the dough is perfectly smooth, it must peel away from the pan, leave it to cool. Add eggs one by one, before adding the next one wait for it to be fully incorporated. Control the dough: if it’s shiny and slowly peeling away from the spoon, it’s ready to be cooked; if it’s thick, add an egg. Drop little balls of dough on your trays covered with baking paper and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Icing and stuffing!

• 20 cl creme fleurette 
• a tab of white chocolate, special cooking
• 170 g powdered sugar and one egg white
• red, green and blue food coloring
• a few macadamia nuts or almonds 

Once your muffins and choux buns are cooled down, it’s time to assemble your courtesan… Start with melting the white chocolate in a bain-marie, when it’s done coat your choux buns on a grill and let them harden for 20 minutes… Keep some melted chocolate for later, you can add it a few drops of creme fleurette, put aside. In the meantime, whip the very cold creme fleurette into a Chantilly and when it starts taking, add a little powdered sugar. Take your choux buns and pierce a small hole in their base, and with a pastry bag filled with Chantilly, fill in the choux buns… Keep some Chantilly and add a bit of blue coloring, this cream will be the binder between the different elements of the courtisane. In a small bowl, mix the powdered sugar and the egg white, the mix must be very opaque, and coat the top of the muffins. Separate what’s left of the mix into two and add a few drops of green coloring in one part of the royal icing and a few drops of red coloring in the other part… Now coat the top of your choux buns in green and red. Let it dry for a few minutes in the refrigerator. With a seringue with no needle filled with the rest of the liquid white chocolate, you can draw some arabesque on the top of you choux buns and muffins before assembling the courtisane with the rest of the blue Chantilly! A small macadamia nut on top and enjoy!

And since you’re all asking for it wildly, here is the template to make this adorable box! The secret is to print it in red on a pink paper!

MENDL'S visual and the box template, I love you!