Choux pastry
Choux pastry is used in the making of individual pastries like chouquettes, eclairs, religieuses and also family cakes like Paris-Brest , Saint-Honoré or croquembouche.
Ingredients for:
makes 80 chouquettes, or
1 family + 6 individual Paris-Brest, or
16 religieuses, or
18 eclaires
250 ml water (or half water, half milk)
100g butter
4 g salt
10 g caster sugar
150 g white bread flour sifted
220 - 250 gr eggs (4-5 medium eggs)
1 beaten egg, to glaze
Picture 1
Cut up the butter into small pieces.
In a saucepan , bring the water , diced butter , salt and sugar to the boil until the water and melted butter are combined .
Picture 2
Take the saucepan off the heat and add all the sifted flour.
With a spatula stir at first , then vigorously , until the flour is fully incorporated .
Picture 3
The obtained thick paste of butter, water, and flour is called Panade.
Put the saucepan back on the hob , at low heat , to dry out the mix .
Keep stirring for about 30 seconds until the mixture is no longer sticking to the saucepan and the spatula
Picture 4
Take off the heat, transfer the panade into a large bowl (or mixing bol) and leave to cool 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Gradually add the beaten eggs into the dough and beatvigorously after each addition to incorporate as much air as possible.
This step can also be done with an electric mixer fitted with a paddle.
Picture 5
The consistency should be neither too soft nor too hard.
If it doesn’t, continue adding the eggs, until you get a glossy paste.
Depending on the egg size and/or flour quality it may be not necessary to use the entire amount of eggs;
To check the consistency of the mixture you can use a few methodes:
Picture 6
Draw a line with the finger (Picture 6) your dough, has to retract at the end of 20-30 seconds.
Picture 7
Picture 8
The dough is ready to be used, if when you lift up your spatula, it falls after roughly 3 seconds.
Bake at 180 degrees celcius in a pre-heated oven up to completely uniform coloring .
And do not open the oven door in the first 10-15 minutes of baking (it may collapse)
Good to know
You can bake the choux pastry immediately after you have piped them or You can freeze any excess.
