Traditionally filled with yellow pastry cream, however in supermarkets they often use Bavarian cream.

Ingredients

Puff pastry

Yellow Cream

• 2 tbsp custard powder
• 75gr caster sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 250ml cream

Bavarois

• 125ml cream
• 250ml milk
• 25gr cornstarch
• 5 sheets of gelatine
• 1 vanilla pod
• 50gr sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• flour
• Liquid fondant/icing
• 100g raspberries/cherries
• 300 g icing sugar

Yellow Cream

Put the yolks into a saucepan add the sugar and beat until creamy. Add a splash of the cream to the custard and mix. Whisk the remaining cream into the egg mixture and add the custard. Slowly heat the mixture, stirring continuously, until it thickens after about 5 minutes. Do not let the mixture boil! Pour it onto a plate or serving tray, cover with cling wrap and set in the fridge for about an hour.

Bavarois

An alternative to the yellow cream is Bavarian cream or mousse. This is a really thick and creamy substance that has to be cut into the right size before putting it on top of the pastry.

Bring milk to a simmer and add vanilla seeds and pod. Add a splash of milk to the cornstarch and mix, then add this to the simmering milk. Remove the milk from the heat and set aside, remove vanilla pod. Beat the yolks with the sugar until creamy and mix it into the hot milk. Put the gelatin sheets into cold water to soak for 5 minutes. Dissolve the gelatin sheets in the cream and let it cool completely.Whip cream into stiff peaks and stir it through the milk/gelatin mixture. Put this into a greased, square baking tin and set in the fridge for about an hour.

Pastry

Preheat the oven to 220 ºC. Take a big sheet of puff pastry and put it on a baking tray with grease proof paper. Cut it into an even number of equal parts and use a fork to make many holes in the pastry to prevent it from rising. What? Puff pastry that shouldn’t be puffy? Yes.

Bake for about 8 minutes, take it out of the oven, cover with a clean cloth and gently press down do remove all of the air. Remember, we don’t want the puff pastry to get puffy. Bake for another 10 minutes and let it cool completely.

For yellow cream: fill a piping bag with the cream and pipe a layer onto one of the pastry sheets. Put the other half on top and set in the fridge until use.

For Bavarian cream: put a serving tray/plate on top of the baking tin and flip, so the cream slides out of the mold. Cut the cream into pieces big enough to fit onto the pastry, put the other half on top and set in the fridge until use.

Liquid fondant/icing

Make the fondant as described here. You could also use Advocaat for Easter pastries, carrot juice for orange pastries or simply use water and food colouring.

Add a layer of fondant on top and set the tompouce back in the fridge for 30 minutes, to solidify the fondant. Sometimes a tompouce is served with a single line of whipped cream on top for extra pretty looks.