No. 49

St. Honore Cream

Creme St. Honore

Into a saucepan put ten egg-yolks and half a pound of sugar, one ounce of common flour and one ounce of rice flour; dilute with a pint of boiling milk into which half a vanilla stick has been infused. Put the saucepan on the fire and stir incessantly till the ingredients become consistent and are about to boil, then suppress the vanilla. Have twelve egg-whites already beaten to a stiff froth, incorporate them into the cream, beating it briskly with a spoon.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is crème chiboust — pastry cream lightened with beaten whites — under its older name. Ranhofer's proportions are for a professional kitchen and the volume is large; the whole point of the method is getting the whites in while the cream is still hot enough to swell and lightly set them.

Weights in modern termsHalf a pound of sugar is about 225 g, one ounce of flour and one ounce of rice flour about 30 g each. A pint in this book is the American 16 fl oz, so 2 cups of milk.
Half a vanilla stickThat is half a vanilla bean, infused in the hot milk before use; the recipe does not say for how long. "Suppress the vanilla" simply means fish the pod out.
Rice flour is not optionalRice flour -- The blend of wheat flour and rice flour is characteristic of the period and is often said to give a cleaner set than wheat alone. Rice flour is sold in most supermarkets and in any Asian grocery; cornstarch is a common substitute and will give a different texture.
"About to boil" undersells itEgg yolks contain an amylase that thins starch-bound custards on standing. Period recipes stop short of the boil, but modern pastry-cream practice takes the mixture to a full bubble and holds it a minute, stirring hard, which inactivates the enzyme and cooks the raw taste out of the flour.
The whitesTwelve whites to a pint of cream base is an enormous lightening ratio, and they are folded in essentially raw, relying on the heat of the cream. Contemporary kitchens use an Italian meringue — whites whipped with sugar syrup cooked to about 118 C / 245 F — for both stability and food safety, or beat pasteurised whites. Fold while the base is still hot, in thirds, and work quickly.
It will not hold longWithout gelatine this cream weeps and deflates as it stands. Many modern versions set the base with gelatine — commonly around 6-8 g, or 3-4 sheets — before the meringue goes in, which is why a slice of gateau St-Honore stands up in a pastry case today.
Yield and useAs written this makes roughly 1.5 litres of finished cream — enough to fill a large gâteau St-Honoré and several dozen choux buns. Halving or quartering the recipe is straightforward; the egg ratio scales cleanly.

A Little History

Ranhofer was chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the French professional repertoire transplanted to Manhattan, which is why this appears among the "elementary methods" — the building blocks a pastry cook was expected to have by heart. The cream is generally traced to the Paris pâtissier Chiboust, working on the rue Saint-Honoré in the 1840s, and it takes its name from the street and from the gâteau built on it; Saint Honoré, bishop of Amiens, is the patron saint of bakers, so the name does double duty. Under the name crème chiboust it remains the standard filling for the cake, though nearly every modern version stabilises it with gelatine and builds the meringue with hot syrup, refinements that came after Ranhofer's day.