| Puits d'amour | |
| Image Alt: | Puits d'amour |
| Country: | France |
| Region: | Paris |
| Creator: | Vincent De La Chapelle |
| Type: | Pastry |
| Main Ingredient: | Puff pastry, butter, confectioners' sugar, jam or jelly |
| Variations: | Pastry cream stuffing |
The Puits d'amour (in French pronounced as /pɥi damuʁ/) is a French pastry with a hollow center. The center is usually stuffed with redcurrant jelly or raspberry jam; a later variation replaced the jam with vanilla pastry cream. The surface of the cake is sprinkled with confectioners' sugar or covered with caramel.[1]
Puits d'amour is a French expression carrying erotic connotations; it literally translates to 'well of love'.[2]
The first mention of the recipe appeared in Vincent De La Chapelles 1735 recipe book Le cuisinier moderne (the modern cook). La Chapelle presented two recipes for a gâteau de puits d’amour (puits d'amour cake) consisting of a large puff pastry vol-au-vent topped with a pastry handle and stuffed with redcurrant jelly, the ensemble was meant to resemble the bucket of a well. The other recipe is for the petits puits d’amour (small puits d'amour), a bouchée sized variant of the cake.
In the eighteenth century, the puits d'amour caused scandal because of its name and presentation which alludes to the female genitalia; nevertheless it was very successful in the court of Louis XV's intimate dinners.[1] [2]
Nicolas Stohrer, one of the exiled Polish king Stanislas pâtissiers preferred to stuff the dessert with vanilla pastry cream and glazed the top with a thick layer of caramel, removing the scandalous connotation of the red fruits jam filling.[1] [2]
A puits d'amour is made up of layers of staggered rings of puff pastry placed on top of a pastry circle. An egg yolk can be used to help the dough rings to stick together. The finished pastry "wells" are baked until puffed and golden-brown and set to cool. They are then sprinkled with powdered sugar, raspberry jam or redcurrant jelly which is carefully spooned in the hollow center.
In a later variation, the top is glazed with caramel icing and pastry cream is used as filling.[3] [4]