If The Choux Fits, Fill It With Pastry Cream

Hello and welcome to part two of this Choux/Eclair extravaganza. Pastry Cream and Eclair recipes to follow.

Not much to say except yum!

So there were two somethings I forgot to mention yesterday in my studying-induced delirium. Something number one: Don't dry out the choux paste too long, otherwise you will give your dough a reddish tinge. Does not look good and can mess with the quality of the end product. Something number two: The ovens we use at school are convection ovens, which means they're fancy and have fans and all that jazz. Normally, I adjust the temperatures for you all like I do with the measurement conversions (we work in metric, I give you U.S. standard). I forgot to do that.

Generally speaking, the rule is to add 25 degrees F to all convection oven temps (makes up for the lack of fan). All previous recipes have done this, I just forgot to do it yesterday.

HOWEVER, with a conventional oven, you can put the choux in at 450 degrees F and bake until browned (fixed in today's recipe). The reason we turn the oven off in a convection oven is because the fan could collapse the choux dough. Plus this way you don't have to mess with temperatures and all that nonsense like I do. Hooray for simplicity.


Crème Pâtissière (Pastry Cream)

474 mL milk (2 cups)
125 grams granulated sugar (3/5 cup
1 egg
2 egg yolks
50 grams pastry cream powder (1/4 cup)

* This is for a half recipe and makes 1 pint. To make the full 1 quart recipe, double everything.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the milk and half the sugar. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Mix the egg, egg yolks, pastry cream powder, and the remaining sugar together in a seperate bowl and whisk smooth. When the milk misture has boiled, temper the egg mixture by adding at least 1/3 of the boiling milk to the egg mixture and whisk to combine (brings up the temp of the egg mixture so the eggs do not cook when added to the milk). Add the tempered mix to the rest of the milk in the saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly (read: whisk like mad until your arm is about to fall off, this indicates the cream is done). Boil while stirring for two minutes constantly. Remove from heat and allow to cool (ideally poured into a bowl over an ice bath). Cover with plastic wrap pressed directly on its surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate once the cream has reached room temperature if not being used right away (can last for 3-4 days if refrigerated).

Éclairs

Pâte à choux
150 mL heavy cream (3/5 cup)
Crème pâtissière (1/2 recipe)
Fondant, pâte à glacer, caramel, or powdered sugar, for finishing

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Pipe the choux, using a #5 plain tube, into 1-inch wide and 4-inch long pieces onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Try to make them evenly and in straight lines, leaving plenty of space between each (they puff up about 2-3x their piped size when baked). Brush the tops of the éclairs with an egg wash and score the tops of the éclairs with a fork (cracking happens on the sides instead of the top and makes them easier to glaze). Place the pan into the oven and let it bake until thoroughly browned (even in the cracks). Do not open the oven doors for at least 30 minutes, otherwise the choux will collapse. Pull the éclairs when done and set aside to cool.

Poke two holes in the bottom of each éclair, large enough to pipe filling into (a #0 plain tube works great). Prepare a crème fouettée with the heavy cream (whisk the cream in a mixer to soft peak). Lighten the crème pâtissière with the crème fouettée to make a crème légère. Pipe the lightened cream into the éclairs, completely filling the inside (pipe until cream comes out of both ends and you can feel the weight of the filled éclair in your hand), with a #3 plain tube. Scrape off excess cream with a small spatula. Glaze the tops of the éclairs with fondant, pâte à glacer, caramel, or dust with powdered sugar.

You can flavor your creams (add flavoring to pastry cream before mixing with the crème fouettée) and icings (add coffee to fondant and mix well), if you want. The plain Jane vanilla ones taste amazing too.


That's all for tonight. This week promises plenty of fun with a cocktail tasting field trip, more dinner out, and I will absolutely recap the Jacques Torres lecture I went to at school today.

Aww Choux-t

I screwed up on Friday. In a big way. I forgot to make an entire part of one of my projects. And I'm okay with it.

If this had happened to me a week ago, I think I would have had a complete meltdown and run screaming from the building. But I've finally wrapped my head around the idea that it's just a pastry. I'll live.

And so once again my groove is found, hopefully here to stay this time. Plus my sainted classmates saved my bacon and gave me their extras so my partner and I could finish ours. For that, I owe each and every one that helped my undying gratitude. And a drink.

Part of the problem I think comes from the fact that, before this last week, I had never piped a single thing in my life. My background in decorating is knife + frosting = finished. It's taken a lot of practice, but I can finally do better detail work. This stuff is deceptively easy.

Check out the decoration work on the Croquembouche! All me, baby.

It just goes to show that Mom was right: practice does make perfect. Just don't let it go to your head, lady.

So you all can start practicing your piping like me, here's the recipe for the dough. Tomorrow, we'll give it some purpose and I'll give you the recipe for eclairs. I would do it all tonight, but I've got a test to study for! Details and drooling tomorrow.

Pâte à Choux (Cream Puff Dough)

473 mL (1 pint) water (2 cups)

250 grams butter, cubed (just over 1 cup)

3/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. granulated sugar

350 grams bread flour, sifted (about 3 cups)

10 to 12 eggs

Put the water, butter, salt, and sugar into a saucepan and place over high heat. When it comes to a boil, remove from the fire and stir in the flour (use a wooden spoon). Put the pan back on the fire and cook the paste to dry it out (there'll be a thin layer of film; takes about a minute). Pour the paste into a mixer and paddle at a low speed to cool the mixture (steam will escape, you want this).

About the time the steam stops, the temperature should reach about 140 degrees F, and you can begin to add the eggs (ONE AT A TIME). ** The temperature of the dough needs to drop so that the added eggs don't cook. You don't want scrambled eggs, unless you want to be weird and have a breakfast eclair. ** The dough has been hydrated correctly when a spatula lifted from the bowl forms a ribbon connected to the batter, a dollop of the batter curls over on itself to form a hook, and the all important finger test through the dough leaves a channel that fills in slowly but still holds an edge. ** The finger test is the most accurate. **

From here, you can pipe the dough into whatever shape or size you would like. You can also flavor the dough (like adding cheese to make Gougéres, aka Cheesy Poofs!) Brush the dough with an egg wash (not optional) and score the choux (optional). Put the dough into a preheated 500 degree F oven, turn the oven off, and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven back on to 350 degrees F. ** DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN TO CHECK THE CHOUX FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER 15 MINUTES, OR 30 MINUTES TOTAL FROM START TIME. ** Bake until well browned and baked through. The dough is done when the areas inside the cracks are browned as well as the outside.

A quick note: Do not keep adding eggs if you don't need to. If the mixture only needs eight to be properly hydrated and can pass the tests, don't add more.