Horns? I know, why not like ‘cones’ or ‘unicorn swirls’? They just sound better, right? Either way they’re a challenge for me. I’d never made puff pastry before, and technically still haven’t… I’ve no idea what the pastry that I made was :O aahha. It tasted like a hybrid of puff and short crust? WEIRD.

Ingredients

For the Puff Pastry

• 250g Plain Flour
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 259g Very Cold Unsalted Butter, in cubes
• 1 Egg, beaten for glazing
• 1 tbsp Demerara Sugar (I only had soft brown in the cupboard)

For the Cream Filling

• 50g Mascarpone
• 25g Icing Sugar
• 200ml Double Cream
• 2 tbsp instant coffee, mixed into a paste with 1 tbsp boiling water

For the Topping

• 100g Dark Chocolate
• 50g Roasted Hazelnuts, chopped (a lot)

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.

Add the butter and use your fingertips to break up the bits of butter making flakes throughout the flour.

Pour in 125ml of ice-cold water. (I used a little less as the pastry became very wet)

Mix with a spatula until the dough come together, knead a little then cover and chill in the freezer for 15 mins – I recommend shaping the dough lightly into a square before freezing, it makes the next part easier.

lightly flour the surface. Roll out the dough into a rectangle around 4mm thick and three times as long as it is wide.

Fold in thirds like shown

Turn the square 90 degrees, roll out and repeat the fold again. Wrap in cling film and freeze for another 10 mins.

Repeat the two folds again, then back in the freezer for a further 15 mins.

Preheat the oven to 220C/ Gas mark 7.

Roll out dough upon a lightly floured surface to about 3mm thick…

Cut out 12 long strips, about 2cm wide.

Wrap the moulds in the strips of pastry – you will probably have proper horn moulds, I had to improvise with tinfoil… Do not cover the tips as pastry will expand when baking. Working upwards with the pastry HALF OVERLAPPING. Mine all spread out because I forgot that part.

Place them on a tray seam-side down, LINED! And chill in the freezer for 5 mins.

Mine got stuck to the tray. I made a lot of mistakes here :O ahaa, silly me…

Brush with the egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 10-12 mins (I did 15) until pastry is crisp and golden-brown.

Leave to cool before removing from the moulds. Place on a wire rack to cool completely.

For the topping melt the chocolate. Dip the large end of the unicorn swirls in chocolate then hazelnuts and leave on tray to cool completely… Be delicate with them, unlike me…

For the cream filling, put the mascarpone in a bowl and beat it until soft, sift in icing sugar and stir together. In another (larger) bowl, whip the cream until you get soft peaks. Fold in the mascapone with a metal spoon. Then gently stir in the cooled coffee mixture. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a star nozzle (or if you’re me and don’t have a piping bag to hand you can make one out of greese proof paper – which I also didn’t have in, so I made one with the wrapper from the chocolate bar, it worked 🙂 ) Pipe the cream into the unicorn swirls, dust with icing sugar and EAT!

I clearly need to improve on my Cream Horns and Puff Pastry in general, but they tasted nice… haha! If you have a recommended puff pastry recipe please let me know, it would be much appreciated.

xox Much love Holly xox

For the original recipe >> http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mocha_hazelnut_cream_95152 <<