Choux Pastry - the base for beautiful desserts such as profiteroles and éclairs. They consist of basic ingredients but it is a little challenging to get the right consistency, so the pastry is hollow from the inside but crispy and golden-brown on the outside. Choux pastry was part of my praxis exams during pastry school and I remember doing tons of choux at home to train. A really great tip I learnt at pastry school is cooking the dough as long as possible in the pan on low-medium heat while stirring, so it dries out completely - I can promise you, this small step will totally help you to achieve the perfectly baked choux pastry. And don't worry if it doesn't work out at the first time - it needs a little bit of training but the moment you figured out how to do it correctly will be really rewarding.
For around 18 profiteroles you will need:
125ml water
50g butter
pinch of salt
3g caster sugar
75g flour
125g whole eggs, whisked (around 2 eggs)
150g whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp icing sugar
70g dark chocolate
30g butter
First put the water, sugar, salt and butter into a pan on low-medium heat and let the butter melt - the water shoult not boil. Once melted add the flour and start whisking. Here it starts the important part, where you want to cook out the whole moisture of the dough. So keep on whisking on low-medium heat until the dough is getting drier and drier. When it is all dried out, pour the batter into a bowl to let it cool down slightly.
In the meantime prepare the baking tray. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Take one sheet of baking paper and draw on circles with a diameter of 5-7cm.
When the dough has cooled down slightly, step by step add the whisked egg and stir them in with the spatula until you get a smooth consistency. Put the batter into a piping bag and pipe the batter into the circles on the baking paper. Then leave the tray in the oven for around 20 minutes. The choux should be hollow, dry inside and golden-brown from the outside. Take the tray out and let the choux cool down completely.
In the meantime whip up the whipping cream together with the vanilla extract and icing sugar until stiff.
Take the cooled down choux, with a small, sharp knife make a small hole on the bottom and fill up the choux with the vanilla cream. Put them back to the fridge to let the choux cool again.
Then, over boiling water, leave the dark chocolate and butter in a bowl to melt, it should neither touch the water, nor be too hot. When it is nicely melted, take the choux and dip the top into the chocolate (make sure the excess is dripping off). Let the chocolate set slightly outside, or quicker for 15 minutes in the fridge, and then enjoy the choux.
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