Rose and Raspberry Religieuse

The name religieuse comes from the way these pastries are said to resemble nuns’ habits, traditionally they would have been in some dull colour similar to a nun’s habit, and I expect they wouldn’t be too impressed if they had to wear the rather fetching shade of pink I used here.

I had fun making these and was particularly pleased with rose and raspberry crème pâtissière which had previously gone a bit wrong, but despite this I can’t help thinking that religieuses are just too complicated for their own good. The various stages of piping, baking and icing make it difficult to control the processes and end up with pastries that are even vaguely similar looking, let alone anything like the uniform rows of perfection you see in Laduree.

Now, I know I’ve said before that perfection in food is all too reminiscent of mass produced supermarket crap, but I think in the case of religieuses they’ve gone too far in the other direction and have way too much ‘rustic charm’ for my liking. I managed to get a couple of decent photos from their good sides, but to be honest when lined up next to each other the nuns looked like they had been dressed by a 4 year old – definitely not the look I was going for.

Next time I’ll use this delightful rose and raspberry crème pâtissière for mini choux buns, dipped in the same pale pink fondant icing, to make something altogether more chic and elegant. The raspberry flavour is super-sharp and tempered by the sweetness of the icing and the floral flavour of the rose water.



Things I have learnt from making religieuses:

Reduce the raspberry purée down so there is almost no liquid left and it is a thick gloopy consistency, otherwise it will make the crème pâtissière too liquid and it will leak out after being piped.

If you are adding liquids such as fruit purées to a crème pâtissière you can add an egg white as well as the yolks as this will help thicken the mixture and prevent it from becoming too runny.

To get a nice even coating of fondant, you can use your finger to wipe off the excess and move the fondant around until you get a neat-edged coat over the dome of the choux bun. This is much better explained by watching this video. Its a very short part of the video, but when I saw it I had one of those ‘oh, that’s how they do it!’ moments.



Rose and Raspberry Religieuse: makes 8
Raspberry purée:
300g frozen raspberries
1 teaspoon sugar

• Put the frozen raspberries in a saucepan and simmer gently
• They will defrost and the water will begin to boil off
• Continue to reduce the purée down to a thick paste like consistency
• Strain through a sieve into a bowl then stir in the sugar
• This makes a little less than 100g of purée

Rose and raspberry crème pâtissière:
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
50g caster sugar
1 tablespoon plain flour
150ml milk
150ml cream
80g raspberry purée
a few drops of rose water

• In a large mixing bowl,whisk together the egg, egg yolks, caster sugar and plain flour
• Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan until just beginning to simmer
• Pour the hot milk/cream over the egg yolks, whisking constantly
• Tip the mixture back into the saucepan and continue to whisk over the heat until the mixture becomes very thick
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely before stirring in the raspberry purée
• Add a drop or two of the rose water and mix before tasting and then adding more if necessary

Choux buns:
2 egg batch of choux pastry

• Make the choux pastry as per the instructions in the link above
• Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking tray with greased parchment
• Transfer the dough to a piping bag with a plain nozzle and pipe 8 small and 8 large mounds of dough onto the baking tray
• Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until dark golden brown and very crisp
• Switch the oven off and leave the choux buns to cool in the oven with the door propped open by a wooden spoon

Icings:
300g fondant icing
pink food colouring
50g butter, softened
icing sugar, sifted

• Warm the fondant icing in a saucepan over a very low heat with a tablespoon of water
• Once it has reached a good smooth consistency add the pink food colouring, a drop at a time, until you get an appropriate shade of pink
• Fondant should be used at body temperature to get the shiny finish
• Beat the butter together with some icing sugar in a bowl
• Add a teaspoon of water then continue to add icing sugar until it becomes pale and a good thick texture for piping
• Put the buttercream in a piping bag with a small open star shaped nozzle (I used a no.16)

Assembling the religieuses:

• Put the crème pâtissière in a piping bag with a 0.5cm plain nozzle and make small holes in the base of each choux bun
• Pipe the buns with the crème pâtissière until they are all full
• Dip the tops of the buns in the fondant icing and the pair them up and stick the smaller one on top of the other whilst the icing is still wet
• Pipe the buttercream up from the base of the small bun to about half way up the sides
• Finish each religieuse with a sugar sprinkle of choice, mine as always are these tiny gold spheres, then put in the fridge to set

Serve the religieuses soon after they are made, as the pastry will lose it’s crispness if left for more than a few hours after being filled