Sometimes the smallest things
take up the most room in your heart.

—Winnie the Pooh

Happy Valentine’s Day, dear reader.
I hope with all sincerity that you get to surround yourself with love today. I hope you feel moved to share your love with someone—anyone—else. Even, perhaps especially, if that person is yourself.

I am still hopelessly lost in love and grief, memory and mourning. Flip sides of a rapidly turning coin, moving so quickly that they become one, beating wings that the eye can’t perceive but as a blur.
I’m not sure how one could reach into my heart and pull out one without the other now, entangled as they are.
Thinking  fondly of a day of saccharine love is impossible to me, as much as I have always adored the cheesiness and camp of V-day. I cried many times making this post because even probing at the raw lump of emotions inside myself makes me break down instantly.
I am reminded that Valentine’s Day is all about love as an act of defiance, as a warding away of darkness in joining together. I find no comfort in that—I covet my pain as a reminder, snatching it back from the void so that I never forget, never stop feeling—but I am reminded nonetheless.
St. Valentine is the patron saint of lovers, and of epilepsy, and of beekeepers, and of the plague.
So today one may pray for love and devotion and cellophane wings, and one may pray to be seized and stung and scourged.

These little wheels of love and patience are miniature Paris Brest pastries. I’ve made a full-sized one with sesame seed praline before (and in that post exalted the busyness and togetherness of a full house with all my family, bitter irony).

While small, these crisp choux support nearly as much filling as a big one, with whorls of silky smooth nutella crème mousseline slinking around raspberries and strawberries.
Crème mousseline is basically pastry cream with butter whipped into it, similar to a German buttercream. The whipped butter gives lightness, while the pastry cream lends body. To me, the keys to balance are a generous amount of salt and fresh, tart fruit.

Any undertaking of finicky pastry takes a measure of time.
The beautiful thing about choux is that you can bake the pastry as many as 3 days in advance and keep them, once cooled, in an airtight container. When you want to serve them, you can simply split them open and fill. Once the filling goes in, the race against sogginess begins, so time accordingly.

Valentine’s Day, previously:

2022:
Bite-sized beet and grapefruit tarts

2021:
Rose-covered white and dark chocolate ganache cake

2020:
Frilly and vintage chocolate, cherry, and cacao butter cake

2019:
Funfetti cake with marzipan and salted tahini frosting

2018:
Kawaii mini strawberry-strawberry cakes with olive oil and balsamic chocolate cake, strawberry jam, and marzipan

2017:
Fluffy, ruffled princess layer cake with a cascade of marzipan roses
Thick, soft M&M cookies
Mocha cupcakes topped with fluffy swirls of vanilla bean Italian meringue buttercream

2016:
Ginger, Malted Vanilla, and Hibiscus layer cake
Baby pink XO salty sugar cookies
Raspberry white chocolate and Nutella éclairs
Brown butter and vanilla bean teacakes

2015:
Fluffy, buttery copycat Lofthouse cookies
Chocolate covered strawberry cake with goat cheese frosting
Dolled-up red velvet cake
Mini pink princesstårta

2014:
Pink grapefruit possets with Ritz crunch and pistachios
Dark and white chocolate French mendiants
Strawberry pocky cake
Salty dark chocolate tarts

 

Mini Nutella Paris Brest
makes 6 pastries

ingredients:
for the choux:
60 grams (1/4 cup) whole milk
60 grams (1/4 cup) water
60 grams (4 tablespoons) butter, cubed
5 grams (1 teaspoons) sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
70 grams (2.5 ounces, 1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon) bread flour, sifted
2 eggs

for the nutella crème mousseline:
240 grams (1 cup) whole milk
2 egg yolks
50 grams (1/4 cup) sugar
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
25 grams (3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon) cornstarch
14 grams (1 tablespoon) butter
113 grams (8 tablespoons, 1/2 cup) butter, softened
150 grams (1/2 cup) nutella

to assemble:
berries
melted chocolate
toasted almonds

directions:
Make the choux: place water, milk, butter, salt, and sugar in a pot over medium heat.
Sift the flour while the butter melts.
When the water comes to a light simmer, dump all the flour in at once and immediately stir with a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon until the flour absorbs the water.
Cook, stirring briskly, until there are no dry patches and little oil droplets are showing up on the bottom of the pan (a spoon should stand up straight when stuck in).
Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Whisk the eggs together extremely well, until they are entirely homogeneous.
Place in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle and begin to mix on low-medium speed.
Slowly stream in the eggs, allowing each addition to fully incorporate.
Stop adding eggs when the dough is pipeable, shiny, and smooth.
Place in a piping bag fitted with a French tip.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Onto a baking sheet fitted with parchment paper, pipe 3-inch rounds.
Place in oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, until puffed and dry.
Allow to cool completely in the turned off, cooled oven.
Make the nutella crème pâtissière:
Place whole milk over low heat in a heavy bottomed pot.
Meanwhile, whisk eggs, sugar, salt, and cornstarch together in a heatproof bowl.
Once the milk comes to a hard simmer, carefully add one ladleful into the egg mixture while whisking vigorously.
Repeat with 2 more ladlefuls until the egg mixture is tempered.
Whisk all of the egg mixture into the pot and continue to heat while stirring constantly.
Cook until thickened, about 6 minutes.
Remove from heat and whisk in 1 tablespoon of butter.
Place into a bowl and press plastic wrap directly onto the surface.
Refrigerate until completely cooled.
Once cooled, whip the 8 tablespoons of butter until light and fluffy and doubled in volume, about 6 full minutes.
Once the butter is whipped, carefully add in 1/3 of the pastry cream and whip just until homogenous.
Repeat with the remaining pastry cream.
Once the crème mousseline has come together, stir in the nutella.
Cool completely with plastic wrap again pressed against the surface, at least 1 hour and up to a full day.
To assemble: split choux in half with a serrated knife.
Pipe melted dark chocolate onto the tops and affix toasted almonds and pieces of berry to the top.
Using a French tip, pipe swirls of crème mousseline onto the bases and carefully replace the tops.
Press halved raspberries and strawberries into the side of the pastries.