Choux pastry is the English term for pâte à choux. This is an extremely light dough that many people think is difficult to make. The recipe calls for butter which is melted in water. Flour is then beaten in and eggs are added, one at a time. The dough has a high moisture content and this creates steam during cooking. This acts as the raising agent to puff the pastry. In most cases, the pastry is baked, but it can be fried to make beignets. In sweet applications it is used to create éclairs, profiteroles, croquembouches, religieuses, French crullers, St. Honoré cake and Paris-Brest. For savoury dishes it is used to make Parisian gnocchi, dumplings and gougères.
Choux Pastry
As I had some left over crème patissière after the soufflé challenge I decided to make some profiteroles and éclairs which meant making some choux pastry. To me, this is one of the easiest pastries to make. And one of the most rewarding. It really is all about ensuring that the flour is cooked and that your dough can be piped.
Choux Pastry
Ingredients
for the choux pastry:
- 250 mls flour
- 5 mls fructose
- 1.25 mls salt
- 250 mls water
- 50 g butter
- 3 eggs, beaten
Method
for the choux pastry:
- Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl
- in a saucepan, melt the butter in the water over a medium heat
- bring to the boil and remove from the heat
- pour the dry ingredients into the water and butter mix, and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a smooth ball
- using an electric mixer, mix in a bit of the egg at a time until you have a smooth glossy mixture
to bake:
- Preheat the oven to 220° Celsius
- place heaped teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet
- bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180° Celsius and bake for a further 15 minutes
- take out of the oven and using a skewer, make a hole in the bottom of each profiterole
- place back into the turned off oven and leave with the door ajar for 10 minutes
to make the profiteroles and éclairs:
- fill a piping bag with the pastry cream
- using a nozzle, make a hole where you pierced the profiteroles/éclairs and fill with with the pastry cream
- drizzle with chocolate sauce
- serve and enjoy!
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I am submitting this recipe to Blue Kitchen Bakes Classic French Challenge
Something I’ve never made, you make it seem easy. I always thought it would be fiddly – with eggs whites needing to be whipped. Thanks, I’ll try this!
it is really easy – the most difficult part is waiting to eat them 🙂
I always used to ask my mom to make eclairs on my birthday when I was a kid…Thanks for bringing back memories!
Robyn
that is a lovely birthday cake – I had a crocenbouche for my 13th birthday 🙂
These look great and thanks for entering them into the Classic French challenge this month 🙂
I love a good challenge 🙂