Choux pastry (Pâte à choux)

This is a must in your baking arsenal. Few ingredients but lots of technique! Read on....
You can stuff them with ice cream, whipped cream or crème pâtissière and then cover them with chocolate sauce or caramel. Unless you are making savoury ones, in which case you omit the sugar and you might want to add cheese or spices to the dough. You can then stuff them with chicken salad for example.

When stuffing with a cream, if you do not want to split the puffs open, you can pipe the cream in with a pastry bag through a small opening at the bottom of the puff.

Yields-12 Servings
 8 tbsp Water (12 cl)
 ¼ cup Butter (60 g)
 ½ cup Flour (75 g)
 2 Eggs
 ½ tsp Salt
1

Heat the water, butter and sugar. Once butter has melted, bring up the heat and as soon as it starts to boil, remove from heat source and pour in the sifted flour and salt all at once.
Return to low heat and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a ball that pulls away from the sides.

2

Remove from heat let cool down.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until it is incorporated before adding the next one.
Do not despair, adding the eggs is not easy and looks like it will never mix but it does...eventually. You can beat the eggs with a fork before you add them to the dough, it helps.

3

The dough should be "supple", if it is too dry you can add 1/2 egg.

4

Lightly butter a cookie sheet and put spoonfulls of the dough a few inches apart (you can also pipe them through the large cicular tip of a pastry bag).

5

Cook for 15 to 20 minutes in the middle of the oven set at 400°F. It is a good idea to rotate the cookie sheet mid-way through cooking to even out the browning, you can also pierce the puffs with a stick to let the steam evaporate.

6

Cool completely before stuffing. You might need to remove some uncooked dough inside the puffs before filling them.

Ingredients

 8 tbsp Water (12 cl)
 ¼ cup Butter (60 g)
 ½ cup Flour (75 g)
 2 Eggs
 ½ tsp Salt

Directions

1

Heat the water, butter and sugar. Once butter has melted, bring up the heat and as soon as it starts to boil, remove from heat source and pour in the sifted flour and salt all at once.
Return to low heat and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a ball that pulls away from the sides.

2

Remove from heat let cool down.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until it is incorporated before adding the next one.
Do not despair, adding the eggs is not easy and looks like it will never mix but it does...eventually. You can beat the eggs with a fork before you add them to the dough, it helps.

3

The dough should be "supple", if it is too dry you can add 1/2 egg.

4

Lightly butter a cookie sheet and put spoonfulls of the dough a few inches apart (you can also pipe them through the large cicular tip of a pastry bag).

5

Cook for 15 to 20 minutes in the middle of the oven set at 400°F. It is a good idea to rotate the cookie sheet mid-way through cooking to even out the browning, you can also pierce the puffs with a stick to let the steam evaporate.

6

Cool completely before stuffing. You might need to remove some uncooked dough inside the puffs before filling them.

Choux pastry (Pâte à choux)

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