Saint Honoré: the king of French desserts

Auguste was the 3rd and youngest of 3 little Parisians. He would have traveled quite a bit for his apprenticeship and would have returned from Toulouse with a lot of nice recipes that he would have made fashionable in the family patisserie on rue Saint Honore, hence the name of the cake which pays homage to the street where the Chiboust pastry shop was located. We also owe him the famous Chiboust cream, which is to garnish the Saint-Honoré, and which is a kind of pastry cream made from eggs beaten into a meringue.

Speaking of Saint-Honoré, there is no coincidence since the street where the pastry shop was located, which is today one of the arteries of Parisian luxury, and which is extended by the rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, where the Élysée is located, was dedicated to Saint-Honoré, the patron saint of bakers, millers, pastry chefs and so on, in short of all trades based on wheat or flour.

Tradition tells us that Saint Honoré was born in Ponthieu, in the north of France, and that he was rather dissipated when he was a kid. He even made his nanny laugh by telling her that he would be a bishop one day. “Ah well if you are a bishop my bread-making shovel will flourish my man” she would have replied. A few years later, when the kid, now bearded, also became a bishop, the nanny would have planted her shovel in his garden and the shovel would have become a mulberry tree “yes it's very practical by the way, in summer we are at the The shade isn't bad, the little one turned out well, it wasn't a success eh! “.

In any case, from the end of the 19th century, after having conquered the Parisian bourgeois tables, Saint Honoré set out to conquer France and became a Sunday dessert among quite a few French people. An honored Saint is a base of shortcrust or shortcrust pastry, garnished with choux pastry before going into the oven. Then, we garnish the choux with pastry cream, we cover them with caramel (or chocolate) and then we fill the cake with chiboust cream, or even whipped cream. The cuisine is some culinary marvels, like the Saint Honoré, but above all it is a lot of heart.