Michel Richard's "Egg" Pastry...or Apricot Pastry

In a saucepan, place all the pastry cream ingredients. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the beans and place it in the sauce pan. Mix it all together. Cook the pastry cream ingredients on med-low until it boils and is thick. Adjust heat if need be. Cool. It should be the consistency of a thick pudding. Set aside. Assembling the "Egg Pastry": Roll puff pastry out to about 1/2 inch thick....if using homemade puff pastry. Otherwise, unroll the store bought puff pastry and lay it flat. Cut a 2 1/2(or 3) inch circle using a biscuit cutter. Cut through the puff pastry cleanly, don't twist the cutter back and forth. Take a circle of pastry and dust one side with flour. Turn it over and press the pastry in the coarse sugar. Turn the pastry with the sugar coated side up. Roll out little circles of pastry leaving the two edges slightly thicker than the sides. Sprinkle a bit more sugar on top. Preheat your oven and place the rolled out pastry in the fridge for 20 -30 minutes. This helps the dough to firm up and keep its flaky layers. Take the pastry out from the fridge and place a generous tablespoon or so of cream on the pastry dough. Add two apricot halves so it looks like two egg yolks.Since I used canned apricots, I first patted them very dry. I chose the firmer apricots. Bake in 375F oven for 30-35 minutes or until nicely golden brown. This can vary depending how thick or thin you rolled the dough. Keep an eye on it...the last few minutes. Brush pastry and apricots with a nice sweet apricot glaze....I used the juice from the can, which I reduced to a syrup-like consistency.If you are using fresh apricots, you need to add a sweetened apricot glaze as the baking takes the sweetness out of the apricots. Just heat up some apricot preserves to glaze it with. Dust with powdered sugar for some elegance.