Paris-Brest

Paris-Brest is a ring of choux pastry split and filled with hazelnut praline cream. It's shaped deliberately after a bicycle wheel, invented for a Paris-to-Brest cycling race, and the ring shape isn't decorative flair — it's the whole reason the pastry looks the way it does.

What it actually is

Choux pastry, the same egg-rich dough used for profiterole and éclairs, pipes out into a large ring rather than a small ball, scattered with sliced almonds and baked until it puffs hollow with a crisp, golden shell. Once cooled, the ring splits horizontally and fills with a buttercream built around praline — a paste of caramelized sugar and ground hazelnuts, sometimes almonds too — which gives the filling its distinctive nutty, caramel depth rather than a plain vanilla or chocolate flavour.

The ring shape and the praline filling are both non-negotiable to the name: a choux ring filled with a different cream, or a praline-filled pastry in a different shape, is a related dessert but not properly a Paris-Brest.

How it's served

• Sliced into wedges, one ring serving several people, or as individual rings.
• Chilled just enough to firm the praline cream, but not cold enough to harden the choux shell.
• As a dessert, dusted with icing sugar in many versions.

Writing it on a menu

• Flag gluten, egg, dairy and nuts; the praline filling specifically carries hazelnut and often almond.
• Say that the ring shape and praline filling are both part of what defines the dish, since either changed makes it a different pastry.
• Note if you serve it as one shareable ring or individual portions, since both are common.
• Mention if a nut-free version exists, since the classic filling can't be made without hazelnut.