Flaming hearts

Here's a cute idea for Valentine’s Day

Starting from some research on Sardinian burnt cream, whose origins date back to the Catalan cream, it has come to this in a modern reinterpretation through a finger food made from classic voul-au-vent filled with Catalan cream I called flaming hearts.

Ingredients per 12 or 15 finger food:
250 g of puff pastry
500 ml of milk
6 egg yolks
200 g of sugar
50 gr of corn starch
zest of one whole lemon
a cinnamon stick
as enough of brown sugar
as enough of pure alcohol

Preparation

With the help of a cut biscuits, preferably heart-shaped, 6 cm in diameter, cut the puff pastry (you may want to use the ready, as an alternative, you can do following the classical recipe and stretching it thick 5 mm), cut out half of the molds with a cut biscuits smallest (4 cm diameter).

Brush with water the whole edge of the pastry and, with the aid of the same cut biscuits, put on the sheets cut a second time by eliminating the central part and leaving the outer edge.
Let stand in refrigerator for about 30 minutes, prick with a fork inside and bake at 180 ° C for about 20-30 minutes, remove from oven when golden.
Just cold, remove with a Paring knife or other pointed a few layers of dough in the middle to free up space.
Put the milk on the stove with cinnamon and lemon peel. Remove from the heat just before it starts to boil and place in a bowl to cool. In another bowl, whip cream to the egg yolks with the sugar.
When the milk is cold, put a little in a cup (to dissolve the cornstarch) and the remaining pour into a saucepan along with the yolks whipped with sugar, put everything on the stove at low heat, stirring constantly. At the time that the cream will begin to thicken, add, while stirring, a cup of milk with the cornstarch previously dissolved.
Continue to cook and stir over low heat being careful not to boil the cream, after about 15 minutes the cream will begin to turn yellow and thick, this indicates the end of cooking.
To warm the cream, after pour it into the hearts of dough and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.
When ready to serve, pull out of the fridge and sprinkle brown sugar over the cream, being careful not to let him touch the dough. With the help of a dropper, sprinkle brown sugar with pure alcohol, being careful not to go on the puff pastry, burn sugar and serve immediately with the flame on (being careful not to turn it off!).
Once the alcohol burned the flame will go out by herself leaving the caramelized sugar.

Notes
You can replace the Catalan cream with a classic cream or any other cream!

The recipe is in the Italian book « Dolci bicchieri – nuove tendenze in pasticceria » (Sweets glasses - new trends in pastry) of Giuseppe and Maria Mazzarella, published by Morrone.

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Versione italiana

Video in Italian