February 25, 2012

pâte à choux revisited

Since I didn't document the first class of Advanced Baking, I wanted to revisit the lesson at home. I tried to make pâte à choux (and build a croquembouche) for Valentine's Day, but sadly I failed and the cream puffs came out like cream flats.

My friend offered me the pâte à choux recipe from his work so I gathered the courage to try again. First I combined 1 cup skim milk, 4 oz butter, a pinch of salt and two pinches sugar in a pot. This was simmered until the butter was completely melted. Then I took the pot off the heat and added 1 1/4 cup flour, then worked the mixture with a wooden spoon until a dough was well-formed. Then I added 4 eggs, one at a time and mixing very well between each. The pâte à choux ended up looking like this (it should slide off the spoon, albeit slowly):

pate a choux

Without a piping bag I resorted to making a hole in a ziplock baggie and putting the piping tip through it. Made little dollops for cream puffs.

piping pate a choux

These were baked at 350°F for 45 minutes, until puffy and golden brown. I was so excited to see them come out like this.

baked pate a choux (cream puffs)

Sadly, when I tried to remove them from the parchment paper, the bottoms came off. This meant I couldn't really pipe cream (or rather, Cool Whip mixed with raspberry puree) into the insides, but I resorted to filling them with a spoon instead and placing them bottoms down into a bowl so the broken-ness wouldnt show. Then I piped melted chocolate and sprinkled powdered sugar over.

cream puff dessert

Next time I'm going to bake them on a silicon mat and see if the bottoms come off unharmed.

1 comment:

  1. Look delicious, Jo. Good job =) why didnt you do any of this when i was there??? =(((

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