Cream Horns: Tiramisu Cream Horns and Peach, Blood Orange, and Basil Cream Horns

At my Dad's request, I made cream horns- the signature bake from Series 6, Episode 8. The challenge is to make 12 each of two different flavors of cream horns- 24 cream horns total. I chose to make tiramisu flavored cream horns and peach, blood orange, and basil cream horns.

So what are cream horns? Cream horns are sort of like puff pastry cornucopias. The puff pastry is swirled around a conical mold before baking. After they are baked, the mold is removed and the pastries are completely filled with a cream filling. The traditional cream horn is merely filled with whipped cream, but the filling can be made with different consistencies and fillings.

 The cream is quite simple to make; the more difficult part of this challenge is the pastry. Anytime there is a pastry challenge on GBBO, there is always the moaning and groaning about which pastry to use- rough puff or full puff. Rough puff pastry merely requires the incorporation of small chunks of butter into a flour dough before chilling. The result is a dough which is flaky, albeit in an unpatterned manner.

Full puff pastry takes longer to make, but yields more beautiful results. The butter is, as a block, incorporated into the dough in very distinct layers; this yields good lamination (layering) in the final pastry. In order to gain these layers of butter, the butter is initially enclosed in a flour-water mixture. It is then rolled out, folded, turned, and repeated multiple times so that there are numerous thin layers of butter enclosed within the dough. The time consuming part of this is that the dough must be refrigerated between turns. If the dough and/or the butter get too warm, it is liable to seep, lose texture, and not rise properly in the oven. Also, the structure is compromised if the butter starts to show through the dough (if this happens, thoroughly cover the buttery area with flour and pat it down until no butter shows through). The overall process is tiddly and time consuming to the point that very few people ever make their own puff pastry dough. In my research before undergoing this challenge, every single recipe I found for cream horns used frozen pre-made puff pastry.

A brief mathematical aside: the number of layers can be calculated exponentially based on the number of folds and the number of turns. The typical fold is an envelope fold, essentially creating three sections in each fold. For this type of fold, the number of layers equals 3 to the power of the number of turns plus 1. In mathematical notation, where l= # of layers, and t= # of turns, the equation would be l = 3^t+1. The fold I did, however, is a book fold. As you can see in the pictures above, I folded both edges to the middle, and then folded the resulting rectangle in half. This separates the dough into four different sections per turn. The equation to denote the number of layers for this type of fold is l = 4^t+1. With the five turns I made, my pastry resulted in 4,096 layers.

The puff pastry was not too difficult to make, but it did take more time that I would have anticipated. Due to the fact that I did not limit my bake to 3.5 hours, I let the pastry refrigerate overnight before forming the shaped horns. If I were in a timed competition, I would suggest freezing the dough for shorter periods of time between turns and before forming the shaped dough.

To form the proper shape, the resultant puff pastry dough should be rolled out into a rectangle about 1/8" thick and cut into thin strips. The strips should be wrapped with slightly overlapping edges around cream horn molds. The pastry should be baked while still on the molds. I removed the molds before one more minute of baking in order to crisp up the interior.

It is not advisable to try flavoring the puff pastry. It is very easy to mess up the structure of the pastry; if one really wants to flavor the puff pastry itself, only dry ingredients (such as ground cinnamon or cocoa powder) should be added to the flour mixture. The flavoring should generally be added to the cream filling. For the tiramisu filling, I added Kahlua and coffee. For the peach, blood orange, and basil filling, I added a homemade blood orange and peach jam and finely-chopped basil. For both fillings, I incorporated mascarpone cheese with the whipped cream. This soft, creamy cheese (one of my favorites in both sweet and savory dishes) is a key ingredient in tiramisu and also pairs very well with peaches.

Once the cream horns were filled, they just needed a little bit of garnishing. I decorated the surface of the cream with cocoa powder for the tiramisu cream horns, and with small pieces of peach and basil for the peach, blood orange, and basil cream horns. They mostly turned out beautifully (thankfully I made two extras, and happened to have two ugly ones). Vincent says they went over amazingly well at his office, and were perhaps my best bake yet.

Also, my wonderful cat Lily decided to photobomb one of my pictures of the bake. She just looked too cute to force her to move.

Next week is my favorite secular holiday- PI DAY!!!!! (It is also Vincent's and my first anniversary.) I will not be making any bakes early next week, but will rather be doing at least two challenge pies/tarts among those I bake for our annual Pi Day party. I will be posting about the challenge pies late next week, and will probably include some bonus content about the other pies made and the Pi Day party in general.

Tiramisu Cream Horns and Peach, Blood Orange, and Basil Cream Horns

Ingredients

Puff Pastry

2 C all purpose flour, plus 1/4 C for dusting
1 tsp salt
2/3 C ice water
8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold

Egg Wash
1 large egg, beaten
1 tbsp milk

Peach, Blood Orange, and Basil Cream

1 peach, peeled, pitted, and finely diced
juice and zest of 2 blood oranges

3/4 C granulated sugar

1 C heavy whipping cream
8 oz mascarpone cheese
1 tbsp basil, finely chopped, plus more for garnishing

Tiramisu Cream

1 C heavy whipping cream
8 oz mascarpone cheese
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C strong coffee
1/4 C Kahlua
cocoa powder for garnishing

Instructions

1. To make puff pastry, make a lean dough mixing 2 C flour, ice water, and salt until dough forms. Press the dough into a square, cover in clingfilm, and refrigerate 30 minutes. Separately, flour a piece of parchment paper on a hard surface. Break up butter into a pile of chunks on the paper. Flour a rolling pin and use it to pound the butter flat. Gather up the butter and pound flat again, flouring as necessary. Repeat until the butter is pliable and does not break when folded over on itself. Shape butter into 4" x 4" block, wrap in clingfilm, and chill 10 minutes.
2. Remove lean dough and butter blocks. Roll out lean dough until about a 7" x 7" square. Place the butter block in the center of the dough at a 45° angle to the lean dough. Fold dough flaps over the butter and press together to completely seal the butter inside. 
3. Flour work surface. Roll out the dough to approximately a 6" x 12" rectangle. If butter starts to seep out, cover thoroughly with flour until butter is no longer visible. Once dough is rolled up, fold the short edges towards the middle and then fold in half, forming four layers. Turn 90°. Again, roll out dough to form the rectangle and perform the book fold. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate 30 minutes.
4. Rotating the dough a further 90°, roll into a rectangle and perform a book fold. Repeat. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate another 30 minutes.
5. Rotating the dough a further 90°, roll into a rectangle and perform a book fold. Repeat with the last turn. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate at least two hours, but preferably overnight.
6. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C) on convection. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper and lightly oil cream horn molds. Roll out pastry dough into a large rectangle about 1/8" thick. Using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter, cut dough along into strips about 1/2" wide (so the length of the strips matches the shorter edge of the rectangle). Make at least 24 strips. 
7. Carefully roll each strip along a cream horn mold, so that the edges of the strip overlap. Pinch the bottom together, as well as the upper point where the strip ends. Beat together the egg and the milk, and brush the egg wash along the entire exterior of the cream horn. Repeat for all cream horns. Refrigerate shaped dough 10-15 minutes.
8. Bake cream horns 15-16 minutes, until lightly golden. Remove horns from the oven and carefully remove the molds. Return horns to the oven for 1-2 minutes. Remove and cool.
9. To make peach and blood orange syrup, simmer 1/2 C granulated sugar, juice and zest of blood oranges, and 3/4 of the peach pieces for 15-20 minutes, until thick. Blend the resulting syrup together and then cool.
10. Prepare the base of the two creams together. Whip together 1 pint (2 cups) of heavy whipping cream until stiff. Slowly add in all 16 oz of mascarpone cheese, continuing to whip, and 1/2 C granulated sugar.
11. Separate the cream base into two halves. Into one half, add another 1/4 C granulated sugar, coffee, and Kahlua. Into the other half, swirl in the peach and blood orange syrup and 1 tbsp finely chopped basil.
12. To assemble the tiramisu cream horns, pipe tiramisu cream into half of the pastry horns, completely filling them. Gently sift cocoa powder onto the exposed cream at the mouth of each cream horn to decorate. Brush off excess cocoa powder before serving.
13. To assemble the peach, blood orange, and basil cream horns, pipe peach, blood orange, and basil cream into the remaining half of the pastry horns, until they are completely filled. To garnish, press a couple small pieces of diced peach and a little bit of chopped basil to the exposed cream at the mouth of each cream horn. Serve and enjoy.