Rose and almond choux buns

Method

• step 1

  For the almond crumble, rub the almonds, sugar and butter together to breadcrumbs, then press together to make a dough. Roll out between two sheets of baking parchment as thinly as you can, then put in the freezer for 1 hour.

• step 2

  To make the choux buns, heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Line a large baking sheet with baking parchment and draw on 10 well-spaced circles that are 4cm wide (use a cookie cutter, lid or template as a guide). Flip the paper over.

• step 3

  Put 175ml water, the butter, sugar and ½ tsp salt in a medium saucepan. Gently heat until the butter has melted, then turn up the heat and bring to a fierce rolling boil. Lift off the heat, tip in the flour and beat with a wooden spoon to a smooth paste. Return to a low heat and continue beating for 1-2 minutes more to dry out the mixture. Cool for 5 minutes.

• step 4

  Beat in two of the eggs, one at a time, back to a smooth, shiny dough each time. Beat the third egg with a fork in a separate bowl, then beat in a dribble of this at a time until you have a nice thick dough that will only very reluctantly drop from your spoon when it’s banged hard on the side of your pan – you probably won’t need all the egg. Transfer to a piping bag, fitted with a large round nozzle, or snip the end off a disposable one. Pipe rounds of the dough onto the prepared tray, using the circles as templates. Remove the almond crumble from the freezer and using a 5cm cookie cutter as your template, stamp out 10 discs from the frozen crumble. Sit a disc on each round of dough and bake for 40 minutes. Turn off the oven but leave the buns in until fully cooled.

• step 5

  Whizz 200g of the strawberries and the rose water in a food processor until smooth. Beat the cream and icing sugar until thick, then gently fold in the strawberry purée. Slice the remaining strawberries very thinly. Halve the buns and arrange a few strawberry slices in the base of each. Spoon or pipe some cream onto them, then sandwich with the tops. Dust with a little icing sugar to serve.