Aaaaah-choux! (aka 'Male' eclairs)

For those of you who have never heard of Choux pastry, it’s a light dessert pastry, used in profiteroles and eclairs. It’s apparently one of the more difficult pastries to get right. It’s always been something that I’ve wanted to try, but been deterred from, as I’d heard it was tricky – and time consuming.

Since moving out here, y’all know that I’ve gotten more and more in to baking, so I mentioned to Frances that I was curious about baking it, turns out, so was she, and, pretty soon, the two of us were joined by Magz (and Eve!) and Crystal for a choux get-together.

We decided to try two, slightly different recipes, one from an American book that a friend had bought me for Christmas and one from a British book, that Frances had been given for Christmas. Just to see how the two compared and, possibly also cause we wanted lots of eclairs…but that’s just a rumour 😉

We started by making the cream fillings, (as it took a few hours to set)

Chantilly Cream

Makes about 350g

250ml Whipping cream, well chilled

2 tbsp icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Whip all three ingredients together until soft peaks. Use immediately or chill for up to 1 hour.

French Patisserie Cream (This was my favourite!)

Makes about 500ml

250ml milk

1 tsp vanilla paste

3 large egg yolks, room temp

50g caster sugar

1.5 tbsp cornstarch/cornflour

150ml whipping cream, well chilled

Heat milk with vanilla paste. Remove from heat and leave to infuse for 10 mins.

In a heatproof bowl (though not necessary in the end), whisk egg yolks with sugar and cornstarch for 1-2 mins till smooth, thick and light. Whisk in the milk. When thoroughly combined tip back into pan over a medium heat.

Whisk constantly till mixture boils and thickens to make a smooth custard. Make sure it doesn’t burn onto the base of the pan.

Pour into a bowl a press a piece of cling-film onto the surface to prevent a skin forming. Cool then chill.

Whip cream until it holds a soft peak. Stir the custard mix until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Use immediately or cover tightly and keep in fridge for up to four hours.

Then we moved on to our American recipe, from the book A Year of Desserts: 365 delicious step-by-step recipes.

Recipe:

For 18 profiteroles or 12 eclairs

1/2 cup butter cut in to small pieces
2tsp sugar (optional)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups flour
4 eggs beaten to mix
1 egg beaten w/5mil cold water for glaze

Combine the butter, sugar, salt and 1 cup of water in a large heavy-based saucepan. Bring to the boil over a moderately high heat, stirring occasionally.

As soon as the mixture is boiling, take it off the heat, add the flour all at once and beat vigourously with a wooden spoon to mix the flour smoothly into the liquid.

Return the pan to moderate heat and cook, stirring, until the mixture will form a ball, pulling away from the side of the pan. This will take about 1 minute. Remove from the heat again and allow to cool for 3-5 minutes.

Add a little of the beaten eggs and beat well to incorporate. Add a little more egg and beat in well. Continue beating in eggs, a little at a time until the mixture becomes a smooth shiny paste.

While still warm, shape choux puffs, eclairs, profiteroles, or rings on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment.