 "Nun's farts" or "nun's puffs" are a light, airy dessert pastry. | |
| Alternative names | Nun's farts |
|---|---|
| Type | Pastry |
| Course | Dessert |
| Place of origin | France |
| Serving temperature | Hot or room temperature |
| Main ingredients | Butter, milk, flour, sugar, eggs; sometimes honey |
Nun's puffs (also known less euphemistically as nun's farts) are a dessert pastry originally from France, where they were known as pets de nonne. They are now also produced in French Canada, the United States, England, and Spain.
The recipe is included in an 1856 "cook book" and Oxford University's Household Encyclopedia from 1859. [1] [2] The dessert is made from butter, milk, flour, sugar, eggs, and sometimes honey. [3] Recipes call for pan frying (traditionally in lard), re-frying and then baking, or baking straight away. [4] [5] The best-established recipes suggest cooking the butter, milk, and flour in a pan then adding the eggs (whites last) and sprinkling sugar on the mixture before baking. [3] Choux paste is also cooked twice, to prepare the paste and to "transform it into puffs". It dates to medieval times and is a cross between a batter and a dough. [6] A cream filling can also be inserted. [4]
The dessert has been described as "light tender morsels" that are "heavenly". [3] Another description describes them as a "cream puff batter that bakes like a popover". [7] Recipes for nun's puffs are also included in two Virginia cookbooks. [5] [8]
The similarly-named French-Canadian dessert pets de sœurs (literally "farts of [religious] sisters") is sometimes confused with this dessert, but actually is a completely different pastry.
The lightness of deep fried beignets is said to have inspired the French name pets de nonne (literally "nun's farts"). [6] The French Wikipedia identifies an earlier term for the dessert, paix-de-nonne ("nun's peace"), which is pronounced the same as pets de nonne, and likely the origin of the later term. The origin of the English name "nun's puffs" is said to be a mystery. [3]
A certain butter mixture is called "nun's butter", made with butter, sugar, wine and nutmeg. [9] Nun's farts are one of several foods that reference the church (others include nun's sighs, Religieuse (pastry), La religieuse (the cheese crust that forms at the bottom of a fondue pot), Cappuccino, angel food cake, cardinal mousse, hermit's food, twelfth-night cake, scripture cake, Christmas cake, Quaker cake, Jerusalem pudding, Jésuite and devil's food cake). [10]
Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. The word "pastries" suggests many kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder, and eggs. Small tarts and other sweet baked products are called pastries as a synecdoche. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
Beignet is a type of fritter, or deep-fried pastry, possibly made from pâte à choux and called pets-de-nonne, which means "nun's fart" in French, but may also be made from other types of dough, including yeast dough. In France there are at least 20 different versions. They can vary in shape, the flour used for the dough, and the filling. They are popular in French, Italian, and French-American cuisines.
Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavorings.
Shortcake generally refers to a dessert with a crumbly scone-like texture. There are multiple variations of shortcake, most of which are served with fruit and cream. One of the most popular is strawberry shortcake, which is typically served with whipped cream. Other variations common in the UK are blackberry and clotted cream shortcake and lemon berry shortcake, which is served with lemon curd in place of cream.
A profiterole, cream puff (US), or chou à la crème is a filled French and Italian choux pastry ball with a typically sweet and moist filling of whipped cream, custard, pastry cream, or ice cream. The puffs may be decorated or left plain or garnished with chocolate sauce, caramel, or a dusting of powdered sugar. Savory profiterole are also made, filled with pureed meats, cheese, and so on. These were formerly common garnishes for soups.
Funnel cake is a regional sweet food popular in North America, found mainly at carnivals and amusement parks. It is made by deep-frying batter.
A mille-feuille, also known by the names Napoleon in North America, vanilla slice in the United Kingdom, and custard slice, is a French dessert made of puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Its modern form was influenced by improvements made by Marie-Antoine Carême.
Choux pastry, or pâte à choux, is a delicate pastry dough used in many pastries. Basic ingredients usually only include butter, water, flour and eggs.
Kuih are bite-sized snack or dessert foods commonly found in Southeast Asia and China. It is a fairly broad term which may include items that would be called cakes, cookies, dumplings, pudding, biscuits, or pastries in English and are usually made from rice or glutinous rice. In China, where the term originates from, kueh or koé (粿) in the Min Nan languages refers to snacks which are typically made from rice but can occasionally be made from other grains such as wheat. The term kuih is widely used in Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore, kueh is used in Singapore and Indonesia, kue is used in Indonesia only, all three refer to sweet or savoury desserts.
A génoise, also known as Genoese cake or Genovese cake, is a French sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and associated with French cuisine. It was created by François Massialot in the late 17th century. Instead of using chemical leavening, air is suspended in the batter during mixing to provide volume.
The St. Honoré cake, usually known by its French name gâteau St-Honoré, and also sometimes called St. Honoratus cake, is a pastry dessert named for the French patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs, Saint Honoré or Honoratus, Bishop of Amiens. In 1847, it was invented by Auguste Julien, at the Chiboust bakery on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris.
Puff-puff is a traditional snack made of fried dough and eaten across Africa, especially in the west of the continent. The name "puff-puff" is from Nigeria, but many other names and varities of the pastry exist.
A religieuse is a French pastry made of a small choux pastry case stacked on top of a larger one, both filled with crème pâtissière, commonly flavoured with chocolate or mocha. Each case is topped with a ganache of the same flavour as the filling, then attached to each other using piped buttercream icing. It is a type of éclair.
Swabian cuisine is native to Swabia, a region in southwestern Germany comprising great parts of Württemberg and the Bavarian part of Swabia. Swabian cuisine has a reputation for being rustic, but rich and hearty. Fresh egg pastas, soups, and sausages are among Swabia's best-known types of dishes, and Swabian cuisine tends to require broths or sauces; dishes are rarely "dry".
Pie in American cuisine has roots in English cuisine and has evolved over centuries to adapt to American cultural tastes and ingredients. The creation of flaky pie crust shortened with lard is credited to American innovation.
