recipes

Choux

Adapted from Claire Saffitz, Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

• 1/2 c water (or mix with milk)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 45g unsalted butter
• 67g flour
• 2 eggs

Steps

• Bring the water, salt, sugar, butter to a simmer
• Add flour, stirring aggressively until it transforms (a minute or two?)
• Set aside, cool a bit
• Beat eggs, add them to the paste, whisk aggressively until it comes together, switch from whisk back to spoon/spatula
• Pipe it onto a tray
• Use the leftover beaten egg with some milk to make an egg wash. Apply with your fingers while pushing the peaks down
• Bake at 400°F for 25-35 minutes. In a convection toaster oven: 400°F with convection for about 15 min then drop to 375°F to finish - this gets proper puffing without overbaking.

Variations

• Add 5 oz cheese into the batter, preferably with a fine grater

Tips / notes

• Use AP flour, not bread flour. Bread flour made them flat with no pocket.
• When adding cheese, it thickens a bit much which I think affected the texture (didn’t get the huge internal bubble). Adding a splash of water to loosen the paste after mixing in cheese fixes this.

Related: Whipped cream

• 1 c heavy cream or whipping cream
• 2 tbsp fine sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

References

• Claire Saffitz
• Smitten Kitchen
• Serious Eats
• Roy from Reddit
• Sally’s Baking Addiction
• Choux au Craquelin with Salted Caramel Diplomat Creme (r/pastry)
• Bouchon’s Gougeres