From The Grand Budapest Hotel · 2014 · Reconstructed
Courtesan au Chocolat
Serve when
Serve when a pale-pink Mendl's box is untied on screen and the little three-tiered pastries are revealed — the film's most beloved object, and briefly its most important.
Before you start
Choux baked and cooled, custard chilled, glaze and stacking done well ahead — this is a real multi-stage bake, so treat it like a pastry project finished long before the movie starts, not a same-night dessert.
Cook-along start: before the movie
In the movie
Theatrical
- 00:43:01 Mendl's signature pastry, a three-tiered tower of choux glazed in pastel colours. Agatha bakes them, they're carried through the film in their iconic pink boxes, and at one point a batch is smuggled into prison with tools hidden inside.
Wes Anderson gives the courtesan au chocolat the treatment usually reserved for a MacGuffin: it's beautiful, precise, symmetrical, and load-bearing to the plot (the prison break runs on a boxful). Like everything in the film, it's almost unbearably composed — which is exactly why recreating one, wobbles and all, is so satisfying.
Ingredients
- For the choux:
- For the crème pâtissière:
- For the glaze:
Method
- Make the choux: boil the water and butter, beat in the flour off the heat until it forms a ball, then beat in the eggs one at a time to a smooth, glossy paste.
- Pipe rounds in three sizes — large, medium, small — and bake at 400°F for 20–25 minutes until deep gold and hollow. Don't open the oven for the first 15 minutes or they'll deflate. Cool completely.
- Make the chocolate crème pâtissière: heat the milk; whisk the yolks, sugar, and cornstarch; temper together and cook, whisking, until it thickens and the first big bubbles burp through, then whisk in the chocolate and vanilla. Chill.
- Fill each puff with the crème through a small hole in the base.
- Dip the tops: the large puff in pink, the medium in mint, the small in lavender. Stack the three, largest to smallest, and pipe fine white detailing so each looks like a tiny frilled courtesan.
Substitutions
- Stacking glue: a dab of leftover glaze or a little melted white chocolate cements the three tiers — the white royal icing does double duty as decoration and glue.
- Vanilla: paste or extract in the crème pâtissière; no need for a whole bean.
Beyond the recipe
Watch it made
- The film's official 'How to Make a Courtesan au Chocolat' short
- Binging with Babish: Courtesan au Chocolat
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