Choux pastry (pâte à choux)

Choux pastry belongs to the basics of pâtisserie. Its origin dates back to the court of the French King Herny II and his wife Catherine de’ Medici: one of her chefs, Pantarelli, invented this light pastry dough in 1540.

Choux pastry is used to create different kinds of dessert, depending on the shape and the cooking method. Profiteroles, beignets, croquembouches, éclairs, Paris-Brest, St. Honoré and the Italian zeppole (deep-fried choux pastry rings that look like donuts) are some of the most common pastry preparations made of choux pastry.

The following recipe is basic and it applies a 2:1:2 ratio to the ingredients (water, butter, flour) that is easy to remember.

Ingredients for about 60 medium sized choux pastry balls

• 200ml water
• 100g butter
•  a pinch of salt
• 200g flour
•  4/5 eggs

You can either freeze the raw choux pastry balls or bake them immediately, in which case you need to preheat the oven (180°C or 220°C, according to the cooking method you want to use).

Line a tray with baking parchment paper. Put the water, the butter and the salt in a saucepan and set over a medium heat. Bring to a simmer and take the pan off the heat. Add the flour while beating with a wooden spoon. When the ingredients are well combined and the dough pulls away from the pan, put it again over medium heat and keep beating to for 3-4 minutes to dry out the dough.

Tip the dough into a bowl or the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Break 4/5 medium sized eggs into another bowl. Add the eggs one by one to the dough while beating with a wooden spoon or the paddle if you are using the stand mixer (at medium speed). It is important to add the eggs one at a time because it allows the dough to incorporate them without splitting. And also because you can check how many eggs you need to add to get the right consistency. If you add too many eggs the final dough will be too loose to keep the right shape and to rise properly while cooking.

Once the eggs are incorporated the choux pastry should be smooth and shiny with a thick ribbon consistency. It is now ready to be transferred into a piping bag fitted with a 10mm plain nozzle.

Pipe the choux pastry into balls 2,5cm in diameter onto the baking tray. You can either keep them into the freezer and bake them in a later moment. You will just need to take them out of the freezer, line them on the baking sheet, let them defrost and then bake them.

To bake them, you can choose between two methods. The most commonly used method involves preheating the oven at 180°C and baking the choux pastry balls for about 15 minutes, until the choux are puffed and browned.

The second method is based on the so-called “heat drop”. Preheat the oven at 220°C. Put the tray into the oven and turn it off. After 5 minutes, turn it on again setting the heat at 180°C and keep cooking for about 10 minutes.

Do not open the oven door for at least 15 minutes while baking the choux pastry balls, the sudden heat drop can make them collapse.

After 15 minutes, in both baking methods, the choux pastry balls should be already quite dry and crisp and there is no risk they collapse. Check them and, if necessary, turn off the oven and leave them inside to dry them out.