Chinois

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 1 Chinois, you will need:

• 1 500 g Brioche dough
• 2 300 g Confectioner's custard (Crème pâtissière, or French pastry cream)
• 3 20 g beaten egg
• 4 100 g fondant icing (optional)
• Total weight: 820 grams

Times:

Preparation	Resting	Cooking	Start to finish
50 min.	4 hours	40 min.	5 hours 30 min.

Step by step recipe

1	After preparing 500 g Brioche dough, refridgerate for 1 or 2 hours or overnight, so that the dough becomes firm. Then roll out dough (sprinkle generously with flour) into a large rectangle about 1 cm or 0.5 inch thick.
2	Put this rectangle on a bigger sheet of cooking parchment. If necessary, reshape your rectangle after this transfer operation.
3	Spread a layer of 300 g Confectioner's custard (Crème pâtissière, or French pastry cream) all over dough rectangle, 0.5 cm or 0.25 inch thick (add more if you wish).
4	Now your goal is to roll up the dough to form a cylinder. It looks difficult, but in fact it's quite easy, thanks to the paper sheet. Use it to start rolling, without touching the dough, and so form the roll.
5	Continue until completely rolled up.
6	Put roll on a baking sheet, and refrigerate for about 2 hours, until the roll becomes quite firm.
7	After this time, remove roll from the fridge and with a large sharp knife, trimm off the ends to neaten. Note: you can cook these bits later.
8	Then cut the roll into slices about 3 cm or 1.5 inches thick, and arrange them in a round mould or tray, touching one touching another. That's why firm dough is absolutely essential, otherwise the slices will squash during cutting.
9	Cover mould with a plastic sheet, and leave in a warm place for 2 hours.
10	After this time, preheat oven to 180°C or 356°F. Glaze top of cake.
11	Put in the oven for about 30 minutes.
12	Turn out on a wire rack. When cake is cool, you can decorate it with 100 g fondant icing, melted in bain-marie or microwave oven.

Remarks

You can also put on the custard before rolling up: raisins, small pieces of dried apricot, chocolates chips, etc.

---