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1
Blind-bake the pâte feuilletée disc at 190 °C on a lined baking sheet, weighted with baking beans, for 15 minutes; remove the weights and bake a further 8–10 minutes. The base is done when it is uniformly golden and dry to the touch at the centre — press lightly with a fingertip and it must not yield.
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2
Pipe a continuous ring of pâte à choux around the outer edge of the baked feuilletée disc, approximately 1.5 cm from the rim. On a separate lined tray, pipe small round puffs of equal size — allow twelve to sixteen. Bake both at 200 °C for 20–25 minutes without opening the oven door. The puffs are done when they are deep golden, fully dry at the sides, and sound hollow when tapped on the base.
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3
Prepare the crème chiboust immediately before assembly and use it without delay. Make a pastry cream from the milk, egg yolks, sugar, and flour; cool it only until it is no longer steaming but is still warm and fluid. Simultaneously, cook the Italian meringue syrup to 121 °C and pour it in a thin stream onto the whites being beaten to soft peaks, continuing to beat until the meringue is stiff and glossy but still warm. Fold the meringue into the pastry cream in three additions, working quickly and without deflating the mass. This is where the dish lives or dies: if the pastry cream is too hot it will collapse the meringue; if the meringue is not stiff enough it will not support the cream; if either component is allowed to wait, the structure is already lost. The finished chiboust feels almost weightless when lifted with a spoon — the body of a cloud before it falls.
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4
Cook the sugar and water for the caramel without stirring until it reaches 175 °C — a pale, clear amber. Remove from the heat. Working quickly, hold each small choux puff at the top between thumb and forefinger, dip the rounded base briefly into the caramel, and invert onto a silicone mat so the caramelised surface faces upward. The dipping window is 10–15 minutes from the moment the caramel reaches colour; beyond this it will recrystallise or burn. The set caramel coat is correct when it snaps cleanly under a fingernail — if it dents, the temperature was insufficient; if it shatters into fragments, it was taken too far.
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5
Arrange the caramel-dipped puffs along the piped choux border of the base, pressing the flat (uncoated) side gently into the ring to secure them. Fill the centre of the disc with the crème chiboust, spreading it level with the top of the border. Pipe the chilled whipped cream across the surface in the traditional Saint-Honoré tip pattern. The finished cake is ready when the cream holds its ridges cleanly and the surface shows no sign of weeping at the base — this condition will last no more than four hours at cool room temperature.