Pate A Choux Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375.
• Place water, butter, sugar and salt in heavy saucepan and bring to boil.
• Add flour all at once and stir until mixture comes away from sides and forms a ball.
• Remove from heat.
• Put mixture in mixer with a paddle and mix on low to cool to warm, not hot.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well to incorporate each before adding the next.
• After last egg is added, beat until smooth.
• With a piping bag and round tip, pipe mixture on to a parchment lined sheet pan.
• You can make as big or as long as you want.
• They will about double in size when cooked.
• Bake at 375 until they become,brown, light and hollow.
• Cool.

Steps:

• 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.

Steps:

• In a medium saucepan, combine butter, sugar, salt and 1 cup water over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and immediately remove from heat. Using a wooden spoon, quickly stir in flour until combined.
• Return pan to medium-high heat and cook, stirring vigorously, until mixture pulls away from the sides and a film forms on the bottom of the pan, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer contents to a bowl to cool slightly, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring vigorously until incorporated between each addition. Use immediately.

Steps:

• Bring to boil the water, with butter and salt over high heat in a deep, wide pot or pan (we use a soup pot for its wider surface area).
• Add flour, reduce heat by 1/4 and stir vigorously and continuously to form a smooth, uniform dough, about a minute or 90 seconds. Take care not to scrape up the crust that forms on the bottom of the pan or reintroduce dry bits back into your smooth paste.
• Transfer to a mixing bowl, and vigorously beat in the eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each egg before you add the next, ending with a sticky, smooth, tender and matte paste.
• Heat oven to 350, and place rack in middle.
• Transfer the choux paste into two disposable plastic piping bags, unequally divided; put 4 ounces (or about a cup) in one for the necks and the bulk of the paste in the other to form the bodies of the swans.
• Prepare two half-sheet pans by greasing and fitting with parchment. (Or use silpats; the greasing is only to keep the parchment from slipping when you are trying to pull your tip away during piping.)
• Cut just the very tip off the pastry bag with the smaller quantity, leaving the diameter of the opening quite small - just wide enough to pass a whole peppercorn or a lentil, for example.
• On one of the prepared sheet pans, pipe big, exaggerated question marks, like the ones on the deck of "Chance" cards in Monopoly. Start each question mark with a short drag of the tip against the parchment, creating a tiny beak as you go. There is ample paste to make mistakes and to practice - you will have plenty of necks even if you mess up a few.
• Now cut the tip of the other pastry bag with the bulk of the paste to leave the opening circumference about the size of a dime. Leaving a 1/2 inch between them, pipe plump little 2-to-3-inch teardrops of dough onto the other prepared sheet pan. I make some a little bigger than others so I can end up with cobs and pens - males and females - just for fun.
• Put both sheet pans into the oven together, and bake the bodies and necks for 8 to 10 minutes, until the necks are fully golden brown, leaving the oven door closed the whole time.
• Remove the necks, and linger for a few seconds with the oven door open, allowing the steam to escape. Close the door again, and finish baking the bodies 25 to 35 minutes more, until they're fully golden brown and toasted. Shut off oven, and let swans dry inside for 20 minutes before removing.
• With a small, sharp knife, slice the domes off the bodies of the swans, and cut them in half, creating two wings, placing them back into the cavity of the swan for now.
• Run the tiny tips of the necks through a flame - a candle or match or Bic lighter are all fine - to briefly blacken. They often catch on fire; blow them out!
• Fill the bodies with diplomat cream, place the wings cut edge up in the cavity, place the necks and gently dust with powdered sugar.

Steps:

• Put butter and salt in medium saucepan with 1 cup water, and bring to a boil. Add flour, and stir with wooden spoon or sturdy whisk until mixture comes together, about 1 minute. Lower heat and cook for 1 minute more.
• Transfer dough to bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix at medium speed to cool mixture slightly. Increase speed and begin to add eggs, one at a time. Make sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. After fourth egg has been added, beat for a minute more, until dough is smooth and glossy. Stop machine, add cayenne, nutmeg, pepper and grated cheese, then mix briefly to combine. (If you don't have a mixer, you can also beat the dough vigorously by hand.) Scrape down sides of bowl and remix, then put mixture in pastry bag.
• Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line two 12-by-18-inch baking sheets with parchment. On each sheet, pipe six rows of 1 1/2-inch-round mounds of dough, five to a row, with at least 1 inch of space between them. (If you prefer, use two soup spoons to put the dough on the sheet.) Brush each mound with beaten egg, smoothing the tops with a finger if not quite round.
• Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees. Continue baking for about 25 minutes, turning baking sheets as necessary, until mounds are puffed, golden and crisp. Serve immediately or cool on a rack and reheat later.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In 2 quart pot, combine the butter and water. On a piece of wax or parchment paper, sift together the flour, salt and sugar. Bring the water and butter to a rolling boil, remove from heat and dump the flour mixture in all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon or paddle to incorporate.
• Return the saucepot to high heat and cook, stirring, for about one minute. The mixture will form a ball and coat the pan with a thin film.
• Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl or standing mixer equipped with the paddle attachment. Mix the dough for a minute or so, on low speed, to release some of the heat. Add the eggs, one at a time, completely incorporating each one before adding the next. Beat until the dough gets thick and ribbony.
• Fit a pastry bag with a round #5 tip and fill with the warm dough. Line a heavy cookie sheet with parchment paper and anchor it to the tray with a little dab of the dough at each corner. Pipe about forty to forty five 1 1/2-inch mounds about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden and puffed. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 10 minutes or until they are golden brown and there are no droplets of moisture in the crevices. Turn off oven and leave the choux to dry for another 10 minutes. Use when cool, or freeze, wrapped in a plastic bag, for 2-3 months.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
• Boil water, butter, and salt or sugar. Add flour and remove from heat. Work mixture together and return to heat. Continue working the mixture until all flour is incorporated and dough forms a ball. Transfer mixture into bowl of a standing mixer and let cool for 3 or 4 minutes. With mixer on stir or lowest speed add eggs, 1 at a time, making sure the first egg is completely incorporated before continuing. Once all eggs have been added and the mixture is smooth put dough into piping bag fitted with a round tip. Pipe immediately into golfball-size shapes, 2 inches apart onto parchment lined sheet pans. Cook for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees F and bake for 10 more minutes or until golden brown. Once they are removed from the oven pierce with a paring knife immediately to release steam.

Steps:

• Place a bowl on your mixer and fit the paddle attachment to it.
• Put your eggs next to the mixer.
• Mix the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt in a 2-quart saucepan.
• Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
• Stirring constantly, add the flour all at once, and stir quickly and without stopping until the flour is thoroughly incorporated.
• Then continue to cook and stir for another 45 seconds, or until the dough comes into a ball and a light film of paste coats the bottom of the pan.
• Immediately scrape the dough into the bowl of your mixer, and turn the mixer on low speed.
• Let it mix for a minute or two - the first few turns of the paddle will put up a cloud of steam.
• That's fine.
• Just let it mix until no more steam is coming off the dough.
• Then add the first egg, letting it mix in fully before adding the next one.
• Keep the mixer on low speed - you don't want to incorporate too much air into the paste.
• Scrape down the bowl every 2nd egg just to make sure everything is mixing together.
• Before adding the 6th egg, stop the mixer and check the consistency of the dough.
• You will know it is perfect if, when you lift the paddle, it pulls the dough with it, then the dough breaks away and forms a peak that slowly bends down.
• If the dough is too thick and doesn't form that peak, add the last egg.
• The dough is now ready to be used to make éclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles, or any other recipe calling for choux paste.
• It should be used immediately.
• NOTES FOR MAKING CHOUX PASTE SUCCESSFULLY: The liquid must be heated to a full boil.
• Add the flour all at once and stir madly until every last speck of flour is incorporated, then keep cooking and stirring some more - it's this last bit of cooking that will take the raw taste out of the flour; you'll know you are ready to quit when the dough forms a ball around your wooden spoon and the bottom of the pan is covered with a light film of paste.
• Stop mixing when you still have one egg left to add and inspect the dough.
• Depending on the condition of the flour, the room, or the moods of the pastry gods, the dough may or may not need the last egg.
• The dough is finished when you lift the paddle and it pulls up some dough that then detaches and forms a slowly bending peak - if you don't get a peak, add another egg.
• And relax.
• Even if you can't decide what to do, add the egg - you will still get a good puff.
• Use the paste while it is warm.
• It cannot be kept.
• Unfilled puffs or éclairs can be well wrapped and frozen for a few weeks.