Origin Pantanelli, the head chef of Catherine de Medici of Florence, invented choux pastry after moving to France in How does it work? Choux pastry can be shaped prior to baking to make a variety of products. Leave A Comment Cancel reply Comment. We're using cookies! We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.
Manage consent. At the end you should know how to make a good choux pastry and understand what all the different steps are for and which steps you can skip. Already got your choux pastry under control? The main characteristic of choux pastry is that it forms a very airy structure with large holes that are ideal for introducing a filling into.
Choux pastry is its own type of dough. The dough is then baked in the oven which is when it puffs up. To do so, you need to follow four steps:. You start by heating up the butter and water for various reasons. Also, the soft butter softens the overall dough consistency. When it cools down again, it will contribute to its firmness. Most recipes call for bringing the water and butter to the boil. The reason for doing so is that it helps accelerate the next step.
That said, you can still make perfectly fine choux pastry if you just heat the two enough for the butter to melt. You might need to stir a little longer in step 2 because you have to make up for that lost heat. Just about all recipes say to add it all in at once and stir quickly. During this step you accomplish an important step of choux pastry making: you cook the flour.
The starch in the flour needs to gelatinize. When flour and hot water are mixed the starch granules within the flour will absorb water and ultimately swell and possibly explode. This releases starch molecules and is what thickens the mixture here. You need enough heat for this to happen. This is very similar to what happens when using flour to thicken the filling in a pie or when making a roux for a bechamel sauce or for donuts.
It is important not to stir the mixture for a lot longer than after it has formed the ball like consistency. If you continue stirring and heating the binding power of the starch can go down kind of what happens to some more extreme in a dark roux. We did test heating and mixing it for a little longer than necessary. It did turn a little clumpy but the final profiteroles still turned out fine. Technically, it is possible to add the butter, water and flour to a pan and heat and stir them all together from the beginning.
For smaller quantities especially, your profiteroles can still come out perfectly fine. However, it is a lot more of a hassle. You need to be more careful not to get lumps or not to burn the mixture. Well, the main purpose of this treatment is to melt the butter, heat the flour, gelatinize the flour and form a thick paste. The science stays the same! So what will happen if you forget either the butter or the water? By whisking the flour and water without the butter, you run the risk of developing the gluten.
You have to cool it down before adding the eggs, or you run the risk of cooking the eggs prematurely! Eggs contain proteins. These proteins will curdle and set when the egg is heating. This is what happens when boiling or frying an egg. You want this curdling to happen once the eggs are in the oven since it will help stabilize the final profiterole. The choux pastry is placed on trays in either balls or longer slivers, depending on your final preferred shape.
During baking, the doughy, heavy pastry is converted into a light and airy puff, as is shown below. The dough is such that it is very flexible but also contains a lot of water.
If you want one of those perfectly round puffs, you can add a craquelin on top. It also gives your puffs just a little more oompf. Enter your email address below to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Thank you very much for this very interesting article. I am wondering what if you change the ratio of butter, eggs and flour. Meanwhile, sift the flour. It helps to remove any lumps, so it incorporates into the dough better.
Off heat, add all the flour at once into the butter mixture. The proper consistency of batter is important, because it can make or break your final outcome. Too runny batter will make flat shells, too thick batter is hard to pipe. Batter consistency The batter should be smooth, thick and glossy. For example, more glutenous the flour, more eggs it needs. Place the pastry bag in a tall glass, as shown above. Too runny choux pastry dough: You probably added too much eggs.
Too many irregular cracks: 1. Classic, time-tested choux pastry recipe with lots of tips for success! Prep: 25 minutes. Cook: 35 minutes. Total : 1 hour 30 minutes. Note: I test all my recipes with both measurements for the most precise and accurate result! Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, or silicone mat. In a medium saucepan, combine water, butter, sugar and salt.
Slowly heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar and melt the butter. Once sugar is dissolved and butter is melted, increase the heat to medium high heat and bring the mixture to a boil.
When the mixture comes to a boil, remove the saucepan from heat and add flour all at once. Quickly mix the mixture until all the flour is absorbed. We just made panade! Replace the saucepan back to burner and reduce the heat to medium. Cook the dough, continuously mixing with a wooden spoon. The dough will start to form into a ball. Keep mixing for another minutes until light crust forms on the bottom of the pan. Note: It's important to cook for at least minutes to dry out the panade. Transfer the dough into a mixing bowl with paddle attachment and mix it for a few minutes on low speed until the mixture is at room temperature, about 2 minutes.
No mixer? No problem. You can mix it with a wooden spoon! Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. This will help to get egg absorbed into the dough quicker. This's especially important, as you might not need to the last egg.
The dough should be smooth and shiny, thin enough to slowly fall into a ribbon, but too runny. See visual cues in the post above, or in the video! At this point choux pastry is done and ready to be piped into whatever size you want. Uncooked dough can also be refrigerated for up to 3 days in an airtight container. To cook pastry shells , pipe the batter into desired shape, depending on what you're making. For eclairs , pipe into 4-inch strips, for cream puffs pipe into 2-inch rounds 3 inches apart.
Level peaked tops with a wet fingertip. Bake, one baking sheet at a time, for minutes, or until the shells are puffed up and golden brown. Note: Don't open the oven door the first 25 minutes. After initial 30 minutes, quickly open the oven door and make a small slit on the side of shells, using a small sharp pairing knife. This allows the steam to escape and helps to dry out the inside of pastry shells.
Bake for another 5 minutes, or until shells are crisp and golden brown. Transfer the shells onto a wire rack and cool completely before filling. Author: Shinee. Did you make this? Show me your creation! You added too much flour, or not enough eggs. Another reason is because you let the choux pastry dry out too much — especially if you let the choux pastry cool in the oven, and you forget to take it out.
You CAN leave the choux pastry covered in an airtight container though! If you baked it too long the first time, simply reduce the time in the oven by a few minutes next time. Every oven is slightly different depending on how hot it actually is, and also the hot and cold spots you get in every oven. Just add extra eggs until you get that right consistency. Chances are you may have cooked the dough too long and too much water evaporated, but it can easily be fixed by adding extra eggs.
Just make sure to add a little at a time, rather than a whole egg at once. Bread flour has a higher gluten content than AP Flour. Bread flour does result in profiteroles and eclair shells that are more sturdy, and hold their shape better. So for that reason I prefer using bread flour to make my eclairs.
Pastry flour has less gluten than AP flour. This will result in a lighter pastry case, that rises more. While this works well, I find that adding a little extra flour helps make perfect choux pastry that is crisp and stable.
The pastries keep its shape as it bakes — a very desirable result. This is true for any kind of baking. With eggs, I like to crack them into a jug, and whisk them before adding to the dough. This unique step results in a really sturdy pastry shell that also has a custard-like texture on the inside.
Always start with cold water or milk. Add the salt and the sugar to the water. Stirring the water frequently while it warms up ensures that the salt, sugar and butter melt before the water comes to a boil. Mix immediately for about 45 seconds, to make sure there are absolutely no lumps. Then cook the dough further on the stove so that enough moisture evaporates to get a good dough. A lot of recipes will talk of different signs to look for when cooking the dough — from the dough pulling away from the sides of the pan, to the dough looking like mashed potatoes, or leaving a film of dough on the bottom of the pan.
Heating the dough for too long can cause the butter to split from the dough as well. This can cook the eggs, and even give your choux an eggy taste. The way I prefer to cool down my dough is to place the eggs in a bowl, and then flatten the dough along the sides of the bowl. This increases the surface area, so it cools down faster, plus more water evaporates as you do this.
Some recipes call for mixing the dough in a stand mixer for a couple of minutes. The amount of eggs added is variable. As mentioned earlier, I like to have all the eggs whisked well in a jug first, before adding it to the dough. This is because I can add a little at a time until I get the consistency I like. Whisking them beforehand ensures that you get an even mix of egg white and yolks being added to the dough at all times.
Mix in each addition of eggs before you add the next. Not good. Because when you added water to cook the dough previously, how much water gets evaporated during the cooking process can vary a lot. How you measured the water, what saucepan you used to cook the dough, how long you cooked the dough can all have an impact on how much water is left in the dough.
This image shows the subtle difference in choux pastry dough consistencies. On left, the dough has almost enough eggs. On the right, the perfect amount of eggs, where the choux pastry dough is smoother, and has a glossy sheen. I use a combination of both tests to check the consistency of the dough. I prefer the finger test over the V test. However, I would recommend using both at the beginning. Make sure the piping tip is just touching the surface of the piped dough, and move up as you go.
This will help create less ripples and folds. This way you will have less cracks in your shell. Alternatively, you can use a spoon or a mini cookie scoop to spoon the dough on to a baking sheet as well. I do recommend piping though. This way your choux pastry will rise perfectly upwards, and not be lopsided.
Remember to use a damp finger to flatten the apex or any points, otherwise these points will burn when you bake the profiterole shells. Another trick I use to get the choux pastry shells to expand even more is to spray the baking tray with some water. For more in-depth details and pictures, check out my Chocolate Eclairs post. Eclairs are a bit trickier than profiteroles when it comes to maintaining their shape. With eclairs, I also prefer to use a French star tip over a round tip.
This really helps with maintaining the eclair shell shape. I also prefer to use bread flour, so that the dough will be more sturdy than with AP flour.
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