Cream-filled pastries and feats of athleticism go together like peas and carrots, so the history behind November’s Daring Bakers Challenge recipe makes perfect sense.

The Paris–Brest-Paris bicycle race was first run in 1891 and is the oldest open-road bicycle race that’s still being run. It’s held every four years now, and it isn’t open to professionals. It’s 1,200 kilometers from Paris to Brest and back again, and PBP participants have 90 hours to complete the course. An equivalent distance in the U.S. would be from Kansas City to Detroit. That’s a pretty long bike ride.

The Paris-Brest pastry was created in 1910 to commemorate the PBP race. It’s piped into a circle to look like a bicycle tire, and it’s filled with a fluffy praline-flavored pastry cream because… ummm… I guess just because praline pastry cream is delicious.

The Paris-Brest is made with a pâte à choux dough, which I’ve made successfully in the past. It didn’t go so well this time around, though, and I think it’s because I didn’t cook it quite long enough and didn’t get enough air into the dough. My bicycle tires were pretty well flat. I decided to make the pastry cream with cookie butter rather than praline, mainly because I didn’t want to make praline. Poppy — who often prefers a very subtle flavor — thought I should have used less cookie butter, but the rest of the household was pleased with the result. It was a little bit grainy, but it tasted nice.

Since my pastry was more cracker-ring than pastry, I wasn’t able to cut them in half to fill them. Instead, we piled the cookie butter cream into the centers and called it a day.

Paris-Brest with Cookie Butter Creme Mousseline

Servings: 6 small Paris-Brest

for the Pâte à Choux
1/3 cup water
6 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons whole milk
1/3 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1/3 cup cold butter
¾ cup plus 4 teaspoons cake flour
3 medium eggs, beaten
1 additional egg, to brush onto the pastry
two handfuls of slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a nonstick saucepan, combine the milk, water, sugar and salt. Add the butter in small pieces and put on medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon and bring to a boil. Add the flour in one shot to the boiling liquid. Stir vigorously with a wooden spatula. Cook on the stove on a very low heat for a few minutes, until the dough becomes firm, smooth and homogeneous. The dough must be dry and detach from the bottom of the pan easily.

Stir the mixture on low speed for a few minutes in a stand mixer until it cools down a little. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well on medium speed.

Cover a baking sheet with baking paper or a silpat mat. If you use baking paper you can trace some 4¾-inch circles to help you out piping the circles. To pipe the Paris-Brest, use a pastry bag with a 3/8-inch (10 mm) plain nozzle and pipe two circles, the outer one of the diameter of the circle you drew. Pipe a third circle on top, using the star-shaped nozzle. If you don’t have one, use a fork to trace some lines on its surface, this will help the choux pastry to rise properly. Brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle with slivered almonds.

Bake at 350 degrees for 23-25 minutes. To get rid of any moisture in the oven you can keep the door slightly open. This way the dough will dry out completely during baking. The Paris-Brest should be golden brown, with a uniform color. Let cool completely on a rack before slicing and piping with the crème mousse line.

Cookie Butter Creme Mousseline
1 cup whole milk
2 egg yolks
¼ cup powdered sugar sugar
3 tablespoon cake flour
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon European-style butter, made from cream, with 83% fat content
2 tablespoons Trader Joe’s cookie butter
1 vanilla pod, sliced open length wise

In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil with the vanilla pod. Put aside and let cool for about 10 minutes.

In a bowl whisk the eggs yolks and sugar until they become white. Add the flour and whisk until all mixed through.

Mix half of the milk in the egg, until all uniform. Pout into the small pan with the rest of the milk and put on medium heat. Cook until the cream thickens, stirring the cream continuously. When thick transfer into a bowl and cover with cling film touching the cream. Let cool.

Mix the softened butter with the cookie butter. Add to the cooled cream until homogeneous.

The November Daring Baker’s challenge took us for a ride! Luisa from Rise of the Sourdough Preacher challenged us to make Paris-Brest, a beautiful pastry celebrating the Paris-Brest bicycle race.