Recipe - Gateau St. Honore

3 tablespoon Brandy
One half cup Golden raisins
12 ounce Semisweet chocolate
7 ounce Unsalted butter
5 Eggs; separated
1 pound Puff pastry
2 cup Sugar
16 Cream puffs, filled
(with pastry cream)
2 cup Whipping cream

To plump raisins, heat brandy and raisins over low heat. Set aside to soak.
Chop 9 ounces chocolate in small pieces. Melt with butter in top of double
boiler over barely simmering water. When melted, remove immediately and
whisk in egg yolks. Add plumped raisins. Beat egg whites until soft peaks
form. Fold into chocolateraisin mixture. Cover and chill 3 to 4 hours or
overnight. Roll puff pastry into 12inch circle about 1/4inch thick.
Pierce with fork. Let rest 25 minutes. Place on baking sheet and bake at
450F until golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes. Caramelize sugar in heavy
skillet until golden brown. Do not overbrown. Remove immediately from heat.
Using fork, quickly dip one half of each cream puff into caramel and place
on buttered parchment paper. When caramel has set, dip uncoated half in
caramel. Cool. Place caramelcoated cream puffs around puff pastry. Fill
center with chilled chocolate filling. Melt remaining 3 ounces chocolate.
Whip cream until soft peaks form. Fold melted chocolate into half of
whipped cream. Set aside. Spoon remaining half of whipped cream into pastry
bag fitted with a large round tube. Pipe domeshaped balls in rows over
chocolate filling, leaving spaces between rows. Repeat, using chocolate
whipped cream, filling in spaces between rows of white whipped cream to
create stripes. Makes one 12inch cake

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini