GAZELLE’S HORNS – PUFF PASTRY WITH ALMOND CREAM
Gazelle’s horns can be made in several different ways, but basically they are a pastry with almond paste in the shape of a crescent. In Morocco they are actually made with pastry dough and translated as “gazelle ankles,” but I prefer the lighter French rendition made with puff pastry and whipped cream with almond paste. The sugary topping is achieved with demerara sugar (also known as turbinado sugar), which is a light brown, large grained, caramel flavored raw sugar.
Ingredients:
4 sheets puff pastry dough, defrosted
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup demerara sugar
5 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ cup almond paste, softened
½ cup dried apricots, finely chopped
½ cup almonds, finely chopped
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
Fresh mint for garnish
Directions:
Prepare the molds for the horns by taking aluminum foil and forming a small cone 2” at the base and 3” high. Make twelve of them and set aside.
Spread out the puff pastry dough and cut into long 1” wide strips. Take one aluminum cone and brush the outside with butter. Take one strip of dough, pinching it at the base and wind it up the outside of the aluminum cone, slightly over-lapping each edge until at the top. Stand each cone up on parchment paper, on a cookie sheet. Complete all twelve, leaving as much space as possible between each one.
Brush each horn with the beaten egg, sprinkle with the sugar, and bake in a 375°F (190°C) oven on a central rack for 12 minutes until golden and puffed. Remove them from the oven to cool. When cooled, carefully remove the aluminum foil.
Prepare the apricots and almonds and set aside. Beat the whipping cream until soft peaks form, add the powdered sugar, cardamom, and slowly add small chunks of the almond paste until completely blended and the cream forms stiff peaks. Fill a piping bag with the whipped cream mixture, and the bag fitted with a wide round tip. Pipe the filling into each pastry horn and lay them down. Sprinkle the cream with a pinch of nuts and apricot pieces and garnish with a small leaf bud of mint. Chill until ready to serve.
Correspondences:
The very fact that the shape of this dessert is horn-shaped is male-like. The butter, eggs, and whipping cream are of water and the puff pastry dough is made of water, salt, a good amount of butter and wheat, but the wheat wins out so it is air of earth. Cardamom is water of air, and the demerara sugar and powdered sugar are of air. Fresh apricots are water of air, but when dried become just of air, and air is the element also of the mint. Almonds are of air but since almond paste has additional almond oil in it, the paste becomes fire of air. Puff pastry is an unleavened product, but it does expand substantially because the amount of moisture in the butter between all the layers of dough. These little cornucopia horns with the crunch of the pastry and sugar and the softness of the whipped cream make for a match made in heaven, just like Nuit and Hadit.
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