Gâteau St-Honoré is an assembled dessert made of shortcrust pastry and choux pastry.
Shortcrust pastry is used to make the base. Choux pastry is used to pipe a ring around the outside of the base, and to make the profiteroles (balls of pastry) that are stuck onto the ring.
The shortcrust and choux ring are baked, as well as the profiteroles, separately. The profiteroles are then filled with pasty cream, dipped in a sugar glaze, then stuck onto the base in a ring around the outside. The centre is then filled with either Chantilly or Chiboust Cream.
Occasionally, the Gâteau St-Honoré is garnished with spun sugar.
History Notes
Some people speculate that Gâteau St-Honoré may have originated with a pastry chef named Fauvel, who work at the Patisserie Chiboust in the rue Saint Honoré in Paris in 1846.
Some think it was possibly made back as far as the 1600s, though they are no recorded recipes resembling it until the early 1800s. And, it’s really only in the first edition, 1938, of the Larousse Gastronomique that a definition and recipe is provided for the Gateau St-Honoré that is made today.
Language Notes
St-Honoré is the patron saint of pastry cooks (indeed, all bakers.) There is a street in Paris named after him.