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Irresistible Sporcamuss Finger Sandwich Recipe

Discover the perfect Sporcamuss Finger Sandwich recipe. Easy to make, delicious to eat—perfect for any occasion.
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I had the delightful confection called dirtymuss in Bari during our trip last April to Puglia. Even though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, it was love at first bite. Perhaps because it leaned into the rich and creamy with only a passing nod to the sweet? Whatever the reason, I knew I had to recreate it back home and share it with our readers. It look quite a while, but better late than never…

Dirty muss is a sort of finger sandwich: squares of puff pastry split in half and filled with diplomatic creamliterally “diplomatic cream”—extra thick pastry cream (custard) enriched with whipped cream. The sandwich is dusted with powdered sugar and served. Utterly simple but delicious!

If you use store-bought puff pastry—and unless you’re a master baker, there’s no real reason you shouldn’t—the recipe should take you less than an hour to pull off. The only slightly tricky bit is making the pastry cream, and even that isn’t all that hard, if you bear in mind a few tips I’ll summarize in the Notes below.

The name dirtymuss means “dirty the mouth”, a joking reference to the way the filling tends to oozes out when you bite into a dirtymusscreating a delicious mess around your lips. I find that goes for your fingers, too. But this is one mess I’m happy to live with.

Ingredients

Makes about 9 dirtymuss

  • 1 sheet of puff pastry
  • 1 egg, beaten with a teaspoon of water

For the custard:

For the diplomatic cream:

  • 250ml (1 cup) whipping cream
  • 2 heaping Tbs powdered sugar

To finish the dish:

  • Powdered (aka confectioners) sugar

Directions

Bake the puff pastry

Defrost the puff pastry following the directions on the package. Make sure it’s still cold.

Lay the defrosted pastry sheet on a board and cut it into squares about 6cm by 6cm (roughly 2-1/3″x2-1/3″). Place the squares on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spacing them well. Brush with the egg wash.

Bake in a hot (200C/400F) oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until puffed up and golden brown.

Take the baking sheet out of the oven and let the pastry squares cool on a baking rack.

Make the filling:

In a standing mixer bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until smooth and the mixture forms ‘ribbons’ as the whisk rotates. Then add the flour or cornstarch slowly, bit by bit, into the mixture until fully incorporated. The mixture should be a pale yellow and quite fluffy.

Meanwhile, heat the milk (or milk and cream) over moderate heat until hot but not boiling. You will see little bubbles just beginning to form around the edge of the pot. (If you are using a vanilla bean, add it to the milk and let it steep for a few minutes, then remove it.) Take the milk off the heat and drizzle it, little by little, into the mixer bowl.

Now pour the whole thing from the bowl into the pot (along with the vanilla extract if using) and put it over very gentle heat, whisking continuously and vigorously. After a while, it should begin to thicken. Keep stirring until you have a thick custard.

Remove from the heat, stir in the grated lemon zest if using, and let the mixture cool. It will thicken further as it cools.

When the custard has cooled completely, whip the cream with the powdered sugar until it forms stiff peaks. Fold it into the custard until you have a uniformly fluffy consistency.

Filling the puff pastry sandwiches

Take each puff pastry square and, with the aid of a paring knife, very gingerly split their tops from the bottoms and pry them open.

Using pastry bag (or just a plastic bag clipped on its corner) cover the bottom of the puff pastry square with thick piping of the pastry cream. Then replace the top pressing it down gently so it adheres to the filling to form a little sandwich.

Repeat until you have used up all the puff pastry squares.

Serving

Dust yours dirtymuss with confectioners sugar and serve.

Notes

As mentioned at the top, if you’re using store bought puff pastry the only slightly tricky part of making dirtymuss is the custard. Like any egg custard, the key is heating the egg enough that it thickens the milk and cream into a rich paste, but not so much that the egg scrambles. The good news is that the flour or cornstarch helps to keep this from happening. Just keep the mixture under an actual boil and you should be fine.

The other less serious but more common pitfalls are lumps. To avoid them, you need to maintain a gentle flame and make sure to keep whisking as directed in the recipe—continuously and vigorously—as the custard thickens. If it seems to be thickening too fast for you to keep up, add a drizzle of milk or cream to cool things down.

NB: You make dirtymuss with a thicker custard than the one used for making sponge cake and custardwith more egg yolk and slightly more starch as well. You need it really thick so the sandwich stays together, especially when the whipped cream is added to the mix. At least until you bite into it, that is.

If you don’t have a pastry bag, then you can use a plastic storage bag with one corner clipped off. Or even just use a spoon.

Working with the puff pastry

As mentioned, the main point to bear in mind when working with store bought puff pastry is, while it should be defrosted so you can unroll and cut it up, it should still be cold. If not, its high fat content means it will become greasy and difficult to handle. (And worse still, it may lose its puff.) If need be, put the pastry into the fridge for a few minutes until it’s cold again.

You’ll find many Italian recipes for dirtymuss calling for baking the puff pastry in a moderate (180C/350F) oven but in my recipe testing I found I got far better results in a hot oven. The pastry had more ‘puff’ and took on a more golden hue. But your mileage may vary, of course. It’s best to just check the instructions on the package.

You can also coat the puff pastry with a dusting of sugar rather than the egg wash. I prefer the egg as it gives the pastry an attractive sheen. The sugar, of course, sweetens the pastry but I find the dirtymuss quite sweet enough without it.

Don’t sweat the precise size of the pastry squares too much. For those using the Imperial system, you may find that your puff pastry sheet doesn’t quite divide into equal 2-1/3 inch squares. That’s fine, anything in the ball park that allows you to handle the little sandwich with one hand will do fine. You may still wind up with odds and ends. And if your hand is unsteady, feel free to use a ruler or other straight edge to guide you when you’re cutting the puff pastry into squares.

Finally, if you’re feeling a bit lazy, rather than splitting each baked puff pastry square and filling the middle, you can simply place filling on one square and top it with another. That said, I prefer to make the extra effort to split the puff pastry. You get a better balance between filling and pastry. And opening the puff pastry also means that the filling will, ever so slightly, penetrate the pastry, softening and flavoring it. And of course, using two squares rather than one, you’ll wind up with only half the number of dirtymuss…!

Variations

Dirty muss is sometimes made with custard only, which provides a richer if less fluffy filling. If you want to go this route, then double the measurements for the custard and, of course, omit the whipped cream.

In some recipes, you warm the already filled dirtymuss very gently (90C) for just five minutes just before dusting it with powdered sugar and serving.

Dirty muss also comes in different flavors. Probably the easiest to make at home is dirty muss with chocolate which you get just by melting some dark chocolate (say 25g/1 oz) into the milk before adding it to the egg and sugar. Nutella is another option.

And if you want to get extra fancy, you can also top yours dirtymuss with a drizzle of melted chocolate or Nutella, either instead of or in addition to the powdered sugar.

Making ahead

You can make both the puff pastry and the filling ahead. If you want to make the diplomatic cream ahead, then cover it with plastic film and place the fridge.

Like cannoli, you should ideally serve yours dirtymuss as soon as possible after assembling them. That said, in a pinch they can sit for a while (I’d say no more than an hour or two, or it will begin to get soggy) and dusted right before serving.

Dirty muss

A sweet sandwich of puff pastry filled with pastry cream enriched with whipped cream

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Puglia

Keywords: baked

  • 1 sheet puff pastry
  • 1 egg beaten with a teaspoon of water

For the custard cream

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 75g 1/3 cup sugar
  • 20g 2 Tbs flour or corn starch
  • 250ml 1 cup milk (or equal parts milk and cream)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or a vanilla bean, split open
  • 1/2 lemon, grated zest of optional

For the diplomatic cream

  • 250ml 1 cup whipping cream
  • 2 Tbs powdered sugar

Bake the puff pastry

  • Defrost the puff pastry following the directions on the package. Make sure it’s still cold.

  • Lay the defrosted pastry sheet on a board and cut it into squares about 6cm by 6cm (roughly 2-1/3″x2-1/3″). Place the squares on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spacing them well. Brush with the egg wash.

  • Bake in a hot (200C/400F) oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until puffed up and golden brown.

  • Take the baking sheet out of the oven and let the pastry squares cool on a baking rack.

Make the filling

  • In a standing mixer bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until smooth and the mixture forms ‘ribbons’ as the whisk rotates. Then add the flour or cornstarch slowly, bit by bit, into the mixture until fully incorporated. The mixture should be a pale yellow and quite fluffy.

  • Meanwhile, heat the milk (or milk and cream) over moderate heat until hot but not boiling. You will see little bubbles just beginning to form around the edge of the pot. (If you are using a vanilla bean, add it to the milk and let it steep for a few minutes, then remove it.) Take the milk off the heat and drizzle it, little by little, into the mixer bowl.
  • Now pour the whole thing from the bowl into the pot (along with the vanilla extract if using) and put it over very gentle heat, whisking continuously and vigorously. After a while, it should begin to thicken. Keep stirring until you have a thick custard.

  • Remove from the heat, stir in the grated lemon zest if using, and let the mixture cool. It will thicken further as it cools.

  • When the custard has cooled completely, whip the cream with the powdered sugar until it forms stiff peaks. Fold it into the custard until you have a uniformly fluffy consistency.

Filling the puff pastry

  • Take each puff pastry square and, with the aid of a paring knife, very gingerly split their tops from the bottoms and pry them open.

  • Using pastry bag (or just a plastic bag clipped on its corner) cover the bottom of the puff pastry square with a thick piping of the pastry cream. Then replace the top pressing it down gently so it adheres to the filling to form a little sandwich.


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