Paris-Brest Choux Pastry Wheels with Strawberries and Cream

On Monday we took the kids strawberry picking (for the first time in their lives).  I’m not sure how many strawberries our four year old actually ate as I lost track after about 45.  He is obsessed with food (specifically, eating it).  We did manage to bring four cartons home and wanted to make a dessert that would be fun and summery.

With the upcoming Tour de France about to go through Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England next week, we have been wanting to make a bicycle themed dessert.  This Paris-Brest dessert originally got its name from the 1891 Paris-Brest cycle race and was first created in 1910 to commemorate the event.  While it is often found with different fillings, we wanted to use whipped cream and berries for ours.

Choux Pastry Ingredients

2 parts liquid (by weight not volume)

1 part fat

1 part flour

2 parts egg

Once we had our berries we made a simple choux pastry and then piped it onto silpat lined sheets in the shapes of wheels or circles.  We let these bake for approx.  30 minutes at  350f. Once cooled they were piped with freshly whipped cream and then decorated with our berries.  This was light and delicious and the freshly picked berries made it very summery.  Needless to say, everyone in our little family loved it.