Puits D'amour [Mauritian Recipe]

Mauritius was first settled in the 1638 by the Dutch, in the year 1715 it was overtaken by the French and later, by the British. However, Mauritius finally celebrated its first Independence day on the 12th of March 1968. Today, Mauritius is celebrating its 45th Independence Day! Coincidentally, it is also rejoicing its 21st Republic Day! Every year, there is the flag-hoisting ceremony held at Champ-De-Mars, and this year, the Chief Guest was the President of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

On the eve of the Independence Day, school and college [high school] students are released early after having celebrated the Independence Day at their respective school. On this day, small bricks of juice and French/Mauritian pastries are distributed to the students. My favourite cake to pick was the Puit D'amour. The Puit D'amour consist of pie crust with a sort of crème patissière on top. And yes with a glacée cherry for the finish!

Equipment:

Measuring Scale
Measuring Cups
Measuring Spoons
Oven
Cling Film
Food Processor / hands (if you dont have one)
Mini Tart Shells
Beans (optional)
Cookie Cutter

Ingredients:

1. For the Pie Crust:

1¾ cups of all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
1/4 tsp of baking powder
226g of cold unsalted butter, cubed
2 tbsp of cold water

2. For the Filling:

2 egg yolks
40g of sugar
25g of flour
1½ tbsp of corn flour
1 cup of milk
1/2 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
1/4 cup of heavy cream

3. For the Finish:

Glacees Cherries
Dessicated Coconut - desired

Method:

Begin by making the pie crust. If you are using a food processor, refrigerate the bowl for 20-30 minutes.

Combine the flour, baking powder and cubed butter together, in the bowl of the food processor.

If you are using your hands, rub the butter into the well-mixed flour/baking powder mixture. DO NOT KNEAD.

Do not over process/mix.

You should obtain a slightly powdery butter mixture.

Add the 2 tbsp of cold water. Form a soft ball.

Using a rolling pin or the palm of your hands, flatten the dough.

Wrap in cling film and let refrigerate until firm. [Mine did not take long, about 20 minutes, however it might take upto 1 hour for yours to firm up.]

Roll the refrigerated dough into a 1/2 inch thickness.

Use a cookie cutter to cut the dough.

Fit cut dough into tart shells.

Trim excess dough along edges.

Refrigerate for another half hour.

Meanwhile, make the crème patissière by first combining the egg yolks and sugar.

Whisk well, until pale yellow (not to much).

Add the flour and the corn flour together. And pour into egg/sugar mixture.

Mix until a smooth paste is obtained.

Boil the milk with the vanilla bean.

Slowly add the milk to the egg mixture. Make sure you keep whisking, so as not to cook the eggs.

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, and continue to simmer on medium heat while continuously whisking.

When the mixture starts to set and becomes thick enough not to be able to whisk, remove from the heat.

Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350˚F/180˚C.

Take the tart shells from the refrigerator.

Use a fork to prick the centre and bottom edges of dough.

At this point if you don't want the crust to rise too much, pour some beans into the tart shells. You can skip this part if you want.

Bake for half an hour or until brown enough.

Whisk the heavy cream into soft peaks. And mix well with the crème patissière to get rid of lumps.

Allow cooling and then remove crust from shells.

Pour the light crème patissière into the prebaked tart shells.

Sprinkle the dessicated coconut and top with half a glacee cherry!

Happy Independence Day!

25 comments

My Food Express12 March 2013 at 11:55
This looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and Yummy!:)
Swathi12 March 2013 at 18:13
Happy Independence day to you. These cutie pastry are yumm.
Disha12 March 2013 at 21:04
Thank you very much Swathi ;)
Rafeeda AR12 March 2013 at 22:24
looks really amazing... great effort!!!
My Food Express11 April 2013 at 16:22
Hi reva,How are you?Long time,I haven't seen any posts from you.Hope things are fine.Take care :)
J14 April 2013 at 11:40
hi! Glad I found your blog, your recipes are great! I have to try this one for sure :)
Autism United19 April 2013 at 08:19
These have always been a bakery treat, never ever thought of attempting to make myself.
Yours look lovely, thanks for the recipe to try.
Anonymous21 April 2013 at 15:38
Hi Revan,
Please visit my blog because I have an Very Inspiring Blogger Award for you. Come and collect it. My blog is Elly's Kitchen (http://free-advertising-ey.blogspot.com)
My Food Express25 April 2013 at 15:21
Hi Reva,How are you feeling now??Hope you are fine...
My Food Express26 April 2013 at 12:40
Psychic powers for me,don't make me laugh Reva..:-) Glad you came back and presented such lovely food posts..
Anonymous14 May 2013 at 05:44
Great blog Disha ;)
Leena Appassamy7 October 2013 at 07:51
Hi and thank you so much for the recipe.
I was just wondering how many of these does this recipe make?

thanks a lot.
Leena
Unknown7 March 2014 at 04:37
Although I also have to make the cooking this is so beautiful and I’m sure it’s all super delicious! Looks so pretty, so good and sounds so awesome!
Your Personal Chef
Teel3 June 2016 at 00:00
Hiiii..can u make the puit d'amour in one large ramekin?
liza18 August 2017 at 05:01
nice post
Anonymous14 May 2023 at 05:56
Hello the recipe calls for cake flour. But where can I find cake flour in Mauritius. La Concorde has patisserie flour but that is not the same as cake flour isn’t it?