Choux Fetish

So today's post is dedicated to one of my favorite desserts: eclairs.  Well, this post will be dedicated to pretty shoes pate a choux, which is the pastry dough you make for eclairs.

Not these... okay, maybe these (louboutins... drool)

THESE are what I am talking about!

photo credit: http://www.iwishiswasindixie.com/

THESE are what I am talking about!

Pate a choux is amazing stuff... you can make it sweet or savory and fill it with almost anything your mind can think of.  And the best part?  It is simple but seems complicated and fancy to those eating your treats.  Fancy dessert, requires a fancy taste tester.



I don't normally dress Plato up in clothes, but this was too cute.  He will be your maitre'd tonight.

 I mentioned I was going to take something to a friend's place for dessert, and this is what I had decided to take over.  I thought the recipe ended up a entire disaster, so I bought a back-up fruit tart to take over to her home (for shame... I bought dessert).  These did end up alright darn good though.   So lets get started.

First you need to melt the butter in a saucepan with some water and salt.

mmm butter.

Once it comes to a near boil, take it off the heat, let it cool for five minutes and then add the flour.  Put it back on the heat (I am not sure why it has to come off and then go back on, but go with it) and mix it until it pulls away from the sides of pan.

a good choux needs flour.

dump the flour in, but work quickly once its there

first it looks like this...

... then it becomes a flour, butter, water, salt ball!  Success.

After that you need to add the eggs.  About three should do it.  Be sure to fully incorporate each egg before adding the next or the whole mixture will break and that is no fun.  Its only fun for things to break when I throw it on the ground. 





one egg... 



...two eggs... 

 

....three eggs, done! 



                                                                                                                       

Once its smooth, you can put it in a pastry bag and pipe it onto parchment paper.  When I did this, it ended up looking like this:

I love pastry bags and piping things.

this doesn't look right...

So I have made eclairs many many many times.  Especially when I was unemployed after law school (darn economy).  But I have never had the pate a choux end up this runny. It actually would not stay in the pastry bag. I was a doubtful of the result from this.  I contemplated just throwing out the dough and starting over.  I actually DID do that.  But the second batch ended up exactly. the. same.  So I pressed onward.  I am glad I did because once they were in the oven they looked like this:

rise my pretties

THAT is more like it.  I took them out of the oven and transferred them to a wire cooling rack where they sat for about ten minutes until completely cool.  They did deflate a little upon cooling, but they were still airy enough that I could fill them.... with vanilla pastry cream pudding.  For a real eclair, these really should be filled with pastry cream, but I was in a rush and feeling lazy so I used instant pudding.  I know, its wrong.  But it felt tasted so good.  On another day I will do a post on pastry cream.  For now, this is what the pate a choux shells looked like:

even just on their own they are pretty darn delicious

To complete the eclair you would pipe the pastry cream in the middle and then dip them into chocolate ganache.  I am sure I will post several times about ganache because I make it every day it tastes good on everything.  But as I mentioned earlier, you can fill these with anything... make them savory and pipe some crab and cream cheese for a crab puff... make some whipped cream and you have cream puffs... fill them with ice cream and you have profiteroles (YUM!).  The possibilities are endless.

Print pate a choux recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs, plus 1 large egg white

Directions

Bring butter, sugar, salt, and 1 cup water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Using a wooden spoon, quickly stir in flour. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture pulls away from sides and a film forms on bottom of pan, about 3 minutes.

Transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until slightly cooled, about 1 minute. Raise speed to medium; add whole eggs, 1 at a time, until a soft peak forms when batter is touched with your finger. If peak does not form, lightly beat remaining egg white, and mix it into batter a little at a time until it does.

Source: http://www.marthastewart.com/