America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Bridget makes Julia the very best Paris-Brest, and Adam reveals his top pick for burr grinders.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

-Back in 1910, an enterprising baker whose shop was right on the route of a famous bicycle race that went from Paris to Brest and back to Paris invented a dessert in honor of the cyclists.

Now, he made it in the shape of a bicycle tire, complete with an inner tube, which was a relatively new invention at the time.

He named it the Paris-Brest, and today, Bridget is bringing it to the test kitchen.

-This is going to taste a whole lot better than a bicycle tire.

-Thank goodness.

-This is so good.

It's one of my favorite desserts because it's not too sweet.

-Oh, that's what I like, too.

-Yeah, so it starts with a pte choux or a choux pastry, so it's got a little bit of crunch and a lot of flavor.

Now, this is 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter, and this is a cooked dough, which is really what sets it apart from so many other doughs.

It's leavened by steam.

I've got 1/2 cup of whole milk.

Now, we're not using all whole milk.

We're using some water.

This is 1/3 cup of water, because we found that the fat in the whole milk made it a little too tender.

It has to have some support.

This is 2 3/4 teaspoons of granulated sugar and 3/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Set this over medium heat, give it a quick stir just to get the butter submerged in the liquid, and we're going to bring that up to a simmer.

In the meantime, this is four whole eggs.

We want a specific amount.

We want 1 cup of beaten eggs.

So, sometimes you'll find four eggs is over a cup.

You'll just want to pour off any excess.

If it's under a cup, you can add a little bit of white in there.

But we're just giving it a good beating here.

Let's just check and see if this is coming up to a simmer.

That is good.

Alright.

All the butter is melted.

I'm going to slide this off heat, and I'm going to add our flour.

This is 5 ounces, or a cup, of all-purpose flour.

So I'm going to stir in all this flour just to make sure that it's absorbed here, and I want to make sure that it's not sticking to the sides.

Just getting this to form a paste.

And I'll put it back over the heat, but I do want to lower this down to low.

We're going to cook this for about three minutes.

As you mentioned, the heating really is magic.

If you think about choux pastry, it has to fill with air, so it has to trap in that air and that steam in the oven.

And so, what the heating does is it forms a tighter matrix or network, so it's really going to trap that steam inside.

That is looking good.

Starting to get a little bit shiny.

I can feel it starting to stick to the bottom.

Let's take this off heat.

And now I'm going to move over to my food processor.

We're going to use the food processor to cool this down.

So I'll let it run for about 30 seconds.

It's just cooling it down a lot quicker than it would just sitting here at room temp.

Alright.

So now we're going to add the eggs.

I'm going to turn the machine back on.

We'll add the eggs in a steady stream.

Again, that was four eggs that we beat.

We're going to let this go for about another minute, and this will all come together into our pte choux.

[ Food processor whirs, stops ] I think this looks pretty good.

It's nice and smooth, a little bit creamy.

Alright.

So now, the fun part.

We get to create a bicycle built for two.

-[ Chuckles ] -Alright.

A little craft work here.

We've got two sheet pans.

I sprayed the sheet pans with a little bit of kitchen spray and then took a piece of parchment, an 8-inch cake pan right on top, traced an 8-inch circle, and then put that side down.

You can just see it through the parchment.

This is our template.

We're going to create an actual tire and then an inner tube because that's more traditional, and, also, that inner tube makes for a better structure.

So we're going to fill up this bag.

Now, this bag has been fitted with a 3/8-inch plain tip.

Any time that I'm filling a bag, to make sure that it doesn't go through, I like to just twist it and put that in there.

-Oh!

I've never done that.

That's clever.

-And then you can start to fill it.

Alright.

So about 3/4 cup of the mixture.

You can add a little too much.

That's fine.

You don't want to under-add because you don't want to break the tire as you're moving it along, so that looks about right.

And then as it gets down there, I can start to open that bottom.

So I'm going to fold this over to make sure it doesn't come back up.

I'm holding the top of it.

That's really where I'm squeezing, is up here.

A lot of people will squeeze from down here.

-Mm-hmm.

-That's a good way to make sure that it shoots back up on you.

So now, this is the inner tube, so I want to trace right on this 8-inch ring so that it will sit right inside the bigger one.

This is not going to be fancy, and it's good that we're doing this first because it's a little bit of practice by the time you get to the fancy outer ring, which is what people are going to see.

So, just a steady hand.

I'm going right on that line there.

Get to the end just like that.

-Nicely done!

-Alright.

So now, we're going to do the outer ring.

We're going to fill the bag with more of the pte choux, and this is a 1/2-inch star tip.

So this one, we're going to pipe our first line right on the inside of that line.

It's okay to take your time here.

And then, when you start to get to the end, you just lighten up on this top squeezer.

So now I'm going to do another ring right on the outside, but I don't want to start here.

I want to start my start point at another location so it doesn't look too obvious where I started.

So this looks like a good little place because, that way, I can kind of mask that little marring.

So, again, this goes right on the outside.

It's captivating, isn't it?

-It is.

-So once this is all baked, it's still going to have those beautiful ridges.

Now I want to do a third ring on top of these two to add a little bit of height.

And again, I'm going to start my seam somewhere else, just right over that seam.

So that looks great.

Now, one more flourish for this outer tube -- a few hazelnuts here.

-Mmm!

-This is 2 tablespoons of toasted and chopped -- also skinned -- hazelnuts, and we're adding them just to this outer tube.

So this is going to bake, both of them, in the same 400-degree oven.

We're going to place the smaller tube on the lower-middle rack and then this bigger tube on the upper-middle rack.

And this upper-middle-rack sheet is going to protect the one down below.

We wanted to prevent the smaller ring from overbaking.

So we're going to leave them in there until this smaller ring gets nice and brown.

That's going to take anywhere between 22 to 26 minutes.

Alright.

-Ooh!

-Now, I'm going to take out this smaller tube here.

Now, if you wouldn't mind turning the oven down to 350 for me.

-You got it.

-Just moving this onto a wire rack.

We're going to let this cool, and this is pretty much done, but we want to let the larger tire stay in there for another 10 minutes.

Gorgeous.

-That's beautiful.

-Yes, absolutely.

Alright.

Would you mind turning the oven off, this time completely?

The good thing about cooking your dough before you bake it is that it traps all the steam inside.

The bad thing is that it traps all the steam inside.

It's never going to get out, and we need some of that steam to escape.

So I'm going to take a little paring knife and just cut a few slits just about 3/4-inch wide.

Just four should do it.

Now, this is going to go back into that oven for another 45 minutes.

And after that, I'll move it to a wire rack and let it cool completely.

Now, if you could put the spoon in the door just to catch it.

We just want to dry out the surface a little bit, make it super-crisp.

Alright.

So now, we get to make our next component while that tire is drying out in the oven.

It's our praline pastry cream.

Before we get to the pastry cream, we've got to make the praline.

-Mm-hmm.

-So this is 1/4 cup of water and 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, along with a teaspoon of lemon juice.

That little bit of acid is great.

It breaks down the sugars, and it helps them to brown quicker.

This is over medium heat, and we can start to see some of those bubbles around the outside, and we're going to let this bubble away for about 10 to 15 minutes, until all of this turns a really nice, deep caramel color.

Alright.

That is a beautiful, golden, kind of amber color.

-Yeah, you can smell it, too.

-We want to get it off the burner because we don't want it to color any more.

And now I'm going to add in a cup of hazelnuts.

Now, these were toasted and skinned.

I'm just really trying to get them coated.

Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho!

-Goodness.

-Exactly.

And now we're going to pour them out onto a sheet pan.

I've got this lined with parchment that I've greased to make it easier later on.

-Candied hazelnuts.

-I know -- crazy.

Alright.

I'm going to press these out into a single layer.

I'm going to put this on a wire rack so that they cool completely.

That's going to take about 30 minutes.

It has been a long half-hour, but you can see, this is all nice and cooled.

Otherwise, my finger would have melted.

So now we want to break this up into smaller pieces so that we can turn it into our praline cream.

I like to use a knife and just cut it into smaller pieces, about an inch or two inches.

Put these into the food processor.

I'm going to let this go for about 30 seconds, until it's well-processed and a little bit sandy.

Alright.

Let's take a look in there.

It's almost the texture of graham cracker crumbs.

-Goodness.

Oh, it smells so good!

-And then 1/2 teaspoon of salt -- salted caramel, always a good idea.

-Mm-hmm.

-And a tablespoon of vegetable oil.

We're going to continue to process this until it forms a paste, and that's going to take about 1 to 2 minutes.

Alright.

Let's take a look.

It's a little bit like natural peanut butter at this point.

It's a little bit sandy.

But, you see I press it, and it's definitely a paste.

I just want to cover this bowl.

We're going to set this aside.

We're done with the hazelnut paste for now.

-Okay.

-On to the pastry cream!

-Alright!

-We have here 1/4 cup of water and 2 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin.

Just sprinkle that right on top and let the gelatin soften for about 5 minutes before we heat it.

That way, we don't get any of those little rubbery balls in the final pastry cream.

Alright.

On to the cream part of the pastry cream.

This is 1 1/2 cups of half-and-half on medium heat.

We just want it to come up to a boil.

In the meantime, I've got five egg yolks here.

These are large eggs.

Now, we've got 1/3 cup of granulated sugar.

I'll whisk this together.

And now we need a thickener.

This is 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour.

It can withstand heating, it's not going to continually break, and it can withstand over-whisking, which I am apt to do.

So just whisking this until it's nice and smooth, getting out any lumps at this point.

Now, we're going to add this to our egg mixture, just about 1/2 cup of that.

And if you could hold the bowl for me, that would be great.

-You got it.

-So we're just adding a little bit directly to the egg yolks to temper them, bring them up to temperature so that we don't get a fancy French scrambled eggs.

And then this mixture is going to go back into the rest of that half-and-half.

Alright.

Just like that.

So, this is going to go back now on medium heat just for a couple of minutes.

Really, at this point, we want to look for it to start to thicken, but we're going to take this whole process very slowly.

Alright.

So it's thickened up just a little bit, and it really is more of a feeling thing than -- -Yeah, it doesn't look much different.

-No, it's getting close to something like a crme anglaise or eggnog.

-Mm-hmm.

-So now I'm going to turn the heat down, and we're really going to slow this process down.

I'm going to whisk it constantly and then cook this for about 8 minutes.

And what that's doing is it's ensuring that the flour completely thickens it, completely gets hydrated.

So, 8 minutes while I contemplate life and whisk away.

Alright, so this is really starting to thicken.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's looking nice.

But now we're going to turn the heat back up to medium.

And this should go pretty fast, about 1 to 2 minutes.

This is starting to really thicken up.

-Yeah, it is.

-Alright.

So I'm going to take this off heat and whisk in some butter -- 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

We cut that into three pieces, whisk that in.

That's going to loosen this, as well.

I'm also going to add in 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and our gelatin mixture.

So, again, that was the 2 teaspoons of gelatin that were soaked in 1/4 cup of water.

-So you have three thickeners in here.

You have the yolks, you have the flour, and you have the gelatin.

So this is going to set up.

-It sure is, and that little bit of butter is going to help, too.

So that looks good.

All that butter is melted.

So now we're going to put this through a fine-mesh sieve over a larger bowl, and I'll just press that through.

-Silky smooth.

-Beautiful.

Alright.

I do want to cover it.

This just a little piece of parchment that we've sprayed with cooking spray.

Press it on the surface.

That way, it doesn't get any of that pudding skin that nobody wants.

This is going to go into the fridge to chill about 45 minutes.

We don't want to leave it any longer than that because it will set up too much.

So 45 minutes just to chill.

We're near the finish line of our bicycle race.

So we're going to whip some cream to add to our pastry cream.

This is 1 cup of heavy cream into our standing mixer.

Now, I'm going to turn this to low and let it go until it's a little bit foamy.

Then I'll crank it up to high, let it go until it goes to soft peaks.

That's about another minute to three minutes.

At this point, I like to do the rest by hand.

Alright.

So this is looking pretty good.

-Beautiful.

-See, it's just got that little bit of curl.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright, so now our praline paste goes right into our pastry cream that is very well-set and chilled.

Just going to whisk this in.

We don't need to be delicate at this point.

Again, we used flour, so we don't have to worry about over-whisking, and we're not trying to keep anything from deflating.

That's why we're adding the whipped cream in just a second.

Alright.

So now we're going to add half of this whipped cream.

Go ahead and whisk this in.

This is just to lighten it up.

Don't want to go too crazy here, but... -Oh, my goodness.

-Alright.

The rest of the cream goes in, and now I'm going to fold it in a little bit more gently.

Alright.

I want to get any last streaks of white whipped cream incorporated.

-Mm!

-That is looking pretty good.

So now, plastic goes back on top, and this is going to go into the fridge to become fully set -- 3 hours minimum, up to 24 hours.

Grinding coffee beans first thing in the morning right before you brew them is a great way to get a fresh-tasting cup of coffee.

But that means you're going to have to operate some machinery.

Tricky in the morning.

But Adam's here.

He's going to tell us all about burr grinders and also explain which one we should buy.

-Some machinery is trickier than other machinery, Bridget.

-There's no heavy loaders or anything like that.

-Stay away from the Caterpillars, stick with the coffee grinders.

-Okay.

-Now, you know there are two basic types of coffee grinders.

One is the blade grinder that chops the beans up almost like a little food processor.

-Yes.

-The other is what we have here.

These are burr grinders, and these are the darling of the coffee industry.

We wanted to find out which of the home models was the best one, so we have a lineup of 10 different burr grinders.

-That's a lot of them.

-Price range was $30 up to $200.

-Oh, wow.

-And we compared them to our favorite blade-type grinder.

-Okay.

-Testers ground both light-roast beans and very dark-roasted beans at fine, medium, and coarse settings.

They also ground and sifted 10-gram portions of beans to find out which setting on each machine would produce the highest percentage of truly medium-sized pieces.

We had coffee aficionados and novices alike test for user-friendliness, and we also took all the measurements for the hopper, as well as the receptacle for the ground beans.

All of these work in essentially the same way.

What you do is you put whole coffee beans in the hopper at the top, turn it on.

They are sucked down into a chamber where there are two burrs which are made of metal.

Coffee beans get ground between them like peppercorns in a pepper grinder.

-Got you.

-And then the ground coffee gets put into this little receptacle at the bottom.

The setting that you choose on the burr grinder changes the distance between the two burrs and, therefore, the grind of the coffee.

There was a difference in how easy or not these were to use.

Some of them had some real problems.

This one in front of you actually spewed ground coffee all over the counter.

-That would wake you up.

-That is kind of a pain, even when the receptacle was positioned correctly.

This one has a built-in scale so that you can precisely measure your coffee, but we compared it to a lab-grade scale.

It was always between 6% and 10% off, even when we reset the scale.

-And that could change the flavor of a cup of coffee.

-Inaccurate -- not interested in that.

This other red one here had a glass coffee ground receptacle that one of the testers elbowed off the counter one morning by accident, and it shattered.

-Yeah, I actually was hoping that it would just brew the coffee right in there, but that's not -- -That's not going to happen.

-That's a whole other machine.

-You know, no appliance is going to be completely bulletproof, but a coffee grinder should at least be able to survive a morning mishap like that... -You're right.

-...so testers really preferred machines that were super-simple to operate, that were neat, that didn't spew ground coffee all over the place, and that had plastic coffee ground receptacles.

Now, I told you before that we did that grinding and sifting test.

-Yes.

-There was a pretty wide range in the quantity of medium particles, and we were curious, like, is that really going to make a difference in the cup?

Are you going to taste that?

-Sure.

-So, testers organized blind tastings.

They brewed coffee with the most and least even coffee from the burr grinders, as well as coffee from the blade grinder, and all of the other variables were the same.

And the results were really interesting and not what we expected at all.

They all tasted good, number one.

People liked them all, and they each were voted by some people as their favorite among the brews.

-Uh-oh.

-So why use a burr grinder if flavor isn't, like, a surefire advantage?

We feel like there are two strong reasons.

Number one is just simplicity.

The good ones are really easy to use, and there's no interaction.

With a blade grinder, you have to shake it to even out the grind.

Just, you know, set it and forget it with these things.

-And it's often the hopper on the blade grinder is tiny.

-Exactly.

That's a problem, too.

The second reason is just consistency, like, you get the same cup of coffee day after day after day and it's really good coffee.

So, the overall winner is the Baratza Encore.

It's this one here.

It's about $139.

40 different grind settings, so you can really customize your cup.

Dead simple to use.

The coffee industry loves this one, and our testers did, too.

If you don't want to spend quite as much money, testers also named the Capresso Infinity Conical Burr Grinder as a best buy.

It's $100.

It doesn't have quite as many settings.

It doesn't work quite as well for smaller amounts of coffees, but it's perfectly simple to use, and it'll save you a couple of bucks, and you'll get great coffee day after day after day.

Isn't that the name of the game?

-It's the only name of the game.

[ Both chuckle ] Well, if you're serious about coffee, and so many of us are, well, then, maybe a burr grinder is in your future.

The winner is the Baratza Encore.

It's $139.

Or our best buy, at $100, is the Capresso Infinity Conical Burr Grinder.

Do you see it off into the distance?

It's the finish line, Julia.

-Ah!

[ Chuckling ] Right.

-We're there.

Alright.

Remember, this was left in the oven while the oven was turned off for 45 minutes, and then I cooled it for a good 15 minutes.

You don't want to fill this while it's hot, or you'll have hazelnut soup.

-Mm.

-So now we need to split this in half.

So I'm going to take a serrated knife, and I just want to go where the slope really meets the bottom here.

-Alright.

-And I'm going to go around.

A serrated knife is definitely the way to go.

You would not want to do this with a regular knife.

Alright.

Make sure it's all the way clean through.

There we go.

And we're going to move this top right there.

And you can see inside, it's a little bit shiny.

That's how those starches gelatinized.

-Beautiful.

-Go right onto our serving plate.

And now we get to fill this.

So I went ahead and moved that hazelnut pastry cream to a bag, and, again, we've got that 1/2-inch star tip.

So we're going to use this first to create a little bed of cream, and no one is going to see this little bed of cream.

-So this is still chilled at this point?

-Very cold, yes.

And you can see the texture of it.

It's very set, as well.

So I'm going to do a little zigzag pattern, and this is going to be our delicious anchor for our inner tube.

I'm not going all the way to the edges, just really down the center.

Alright.

And now the inner tube.

See how it fits right there?

-Yes!

So it provides support but also gives it a little lift.

-Exactly.

And now we have to cover up the inner tube with more of our hazelnut pastry cream.

I'm going to do a zigzag just to cover it all up.

And this is what you're really going to start to see.

-That looks really cool.

-And as I get to the edges, I'm just letting that pastry cream fall out of the star tip.

Just keep moving the platter.

How's that?

-That is beautiful.

-Alright.

So this top layer is pretty delicate, so I want to carefully place it on top.

Just going to gently press it right in, just a little bit.

Don't want to smoosh it.

We have to do one last step, and that is the snowfall of confectioners' sugar.

-Oh!

-Right through a little sieve, a beautiful showering, just enough to really show the craggy surface, hide any flaws.

This serves 8 to 10 people.

-So serving it with a serrated knife is obviously key.

-Yes, just to get through that crisp surface on the outside without doing too much squishing.

-Mmm.

-Alright.

Can you see the little inner tube here?

-Yes!

Absolutely gorgeous.

This is a masterpiece.

-I can't wait for you to taste it, because how many desserts do you get and they're just absolutely gorgeous and you put them in your mouth and you're like, "Oh, that's nice"?

-Wow.

-[ Chuckles ] -That's amazing.

It's not too sweet, and it's nutty, with the caramel flavor of that praline.

-I love the crisp top of the pte choux, as well.

-Oh, my goodness.

The pte choux was the perfect foil for that rich praline pastry cream.

And I love that it's not just a thick pastry cream.

It's lightened with a little of the whipped cream, so it's not super-dense and heavy.

Oh, Bridget, you've outdone yourself.

-[ Speaks French ] -So if you want to make this classic French dessert, start by making pte choux.

Heat butter, milk, and water on the stove, then stir in flour and cook the dough.

Add the eggs to the dough in the food processor, then pipe the mixture out into two rings, sprinkle with hazelnuts, and bake.

Be sure to let that top pastry dry out in the oven, but prop it open with a wooden spoon.

For the filling, make a simple praline and combine with pastry cream and whipped cream.

Finally, assemble the dessert and be sure to take a minute to admire it before digging in.

From "America's Test Kitchen" to your kitchen, a gold-medal recipe for Paris-Brest.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our tastings, testings, and select episodes at our website, americastestkitchen.com.

-First place?

-This is killer.

-Let us help you with dinner tonight.

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