As the name suggests, choux pastry is prepared using the steeping method. Or rather, the flour is brewed, and then eggs are added to it, after which the mass is well kneaded.

The choux pastry is tender and beautiful in the products; it holds the creamy filling perfectly. Choux pastry is unleavened, made without adding sugar, and is used mainly in cakes.
By the way, “Borodinsky” bread is also made from choux pastry, from rye flour.

Ingredients

• water - 1 glass
• salt - a quarter teaspoon
• butter - 100-125 grams
• flour - 1 cup
• eggs - 4-5 pcs.

Preparation

Pour a glass of water into a saucepan, add all the oil and salt. Place the pan over medium heat until the liquid comes to a boil.



As soon as bubbles appear, add flour and stir very vigorously with a spatula, without removing from heat (you can reduce it a little).



While brewing, the flour will gather into a lump of dough, which easily sticks off the walls of the pan. At this point it needs to be removed from the heat. And let the dough cool a little.



Prepare the egg mixture. Beat all the eggs into a bowl and mix.

Since eggs play a major role in the choux pastry recipe, the right amount of them will make the choux pastry tough enough so that it does not fall off after baking. But you can’t immediately say exactly how many eggs will go into the dough - it depends on the quality of the flour and the size of the eggs themselves.

Therefore, it is better to introduce a mixture of eggs into the dough, rather than one egg at a time: it may turn out that, for example, 4 and a little from the 5th egg will be enough (in this case, part of the mixture will remain). But at least it's definitely enough.



While the dough is cooling, prepare a baking sheet: line it with paper and grease it with butter. Turn on the oven at 180 degrees.
Add the egg mixture into the slightly cooled dough in small portions, kneading first with a fork and then with a spatula.



You need to stir vigorously. With each new portion, the dough acquires elasticity and becomes shiny and smooth.



A properly prepared dough should stretch a little, at this point you should stop adding eggs.



Place the products formed from choux pastry onto a baking sheet***

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake, for example, eclairs or shou, for 15 minutes at t 180, and then 10 minutes at t 150. Do not look into the oven so that the products do not fall. For profiteroles, reduce the baking time by half.

*** Place the dough onto a baking sheet using:

From choux pastry you can prepare:

• eclairs - oblong cakes with a variety of creams (butter, custard, protein, whipped cream and others);
• profiteroles are small products (up to 4 cm in diameter) that can be filled with both sweet filling (creams, jam and others) and non-sweet filling (pate, cheese, in general, any meat or fish filling);
• shu - the same as eclairs, only round;
• croquembouche - a cone-shaped cake made from filled profiteroles, which are held together with a special sauce;
• Paris-Brest - cake made from custard ring and shu;
• choux buns with savory fillings.

Eclairs, profiteroles, choux buns - all this is made from choux pastry. If you use different fillings, you can make a wide variety of desserts and snacks from custard buns.

Whatever you fill these buns with, the end result will be a dish that you can be completely confident in serving it to the table. Everyone will be delighted with the tender, slightly tasty filling.

The main task of the housewife is to properly make and bake buns from choux pastry. But this is not always easy the first time. Since choux pastry is quite capricious, it is necessary to take into account some nuances, which for some reason cookbooks are silent about.

How to make choux pastry

Ingredients

125 g butter

1 glass of water

1 cup flour

A pinch of salt

Step 1

First, you bring water to a boil and completely dissolve the oil in it. And add salt. And then add flour.

Secret 1. You need to pour out the flour all at once and mix very quickly. Then it will not give lumps. After adding flour, the dough will be very dense and thick.

Secret 2. This dough is called choux because it is boiled. You need to cook for 2 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly. You need to stir quickly so that nothing burns and the whole dough cooks evenly.

Step 2

Adding eggs. They need to be driven in one at a time, stirring constantly until the dough begins to stretch.

Secret 3. Before adding eggs, remove the dough from the heat and cool slightly. Just stir it for a couple of minutes.

Secret 4. Eggs should not come straight from the refrigerator. When you start preparing the dough, you need to take them out and wash them under running warm water. While you are making the dough, they will heat up.

Secret 5. The number of eggs is determined by eye. If the eggs are large, then usually there are 4 eggs per serving. If small, you may need 6 eggs. I usually make 2 portions of dough at once and add 8-9 eggs.

Secret 6. Do not use a mixer. This will make the dough very liquid.

Secret 7. The dough should not be too liquid. As soon as it begins to stretch, immediately stop stirring in the eggs. Even if you think it is still too thick.

Step 3

Grease the baking sheet and spoon out the dough to form buns.

Secret 8. Be sure to preheat the oven to 200 degrees before placing your first batch of buns. The oven must be turned on at the same time as you start preparing the dough.

Secret 9. When spooning out the dough, dip a spoon in water. It will stick well.

Secret 10. Do not make very large buns; they will bake well. A teaspoon is suitable for their formation. Keep in mind that future eclairs will double in size.

Step 4

Bake the buns for 20-30 minutes.

Secret 11. First, the buns are placed in a hot oven, about 200° C. And when they rise and golden, the temperature must be reduced to 150° C and finished baking. The danger is that if you turn down the temperature too early, the buns will fall. And if the temperature is not reduced, they will not bake well. Baking time depends on the size of the buns. But average eclairs bake for about 15 minutes at high temperature and 15 minutes at low.

Secret 12. To determine if the buns are ready, you need to quickly pull one out. If it doesn’t fall off from the cold air, it means it’s ready and can be removed.

Secret 13. The second batch of buns should be placed on a cold baking sheet. So cool it under running water.

Step 5

The buns need to be taken out, cooled and stuffed.

Secret 14. When placing the buns on a platter, try to ensure that each one has access to air. That is, the second layer must be made very rare.

Secret 15. Custard buns can easily become damp and turn into a rag, so you can only cover the dish with buns with paper napkins and leave them in ventilated areas. Do not put the buns in the refrigerator.

Secret 16. To stuff the bun, you need to cut the top. To do this you need a very sharp and thin knife. A small ceramic knife has proven itself well for these purposes.

Fillings for choux buns

You can fill the buns with both sweet cream and savory fillings: caviar, salads, pate, even feta cheese with garlic and herbs.

Curd cream

250 g cottage cheese

250 g heavy cream

150 g brown sugar

Liquid vanilla on the tip of a teaspoon

Step 1. Whip the cream.

Step 2. Add sugar, cottage cheese, vanilla and beat everything again.

Pate

500 g chicken liver

200 g heavy cream

100-150 g butter

1 onion

4 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

Step 1. Sort the chicken liver, wash it and trim off the connective tissue.

Step 2. Cut the onion into half rings. Fry until golden brown in 2 tbsp. oils Transfer to a bowl.

Step 3. Pour 2 tbsp into the pan. oil, heat and add liver. Fry until crusty on all sides.

Step 4. Season with pepper, cover with a lid and remove from heat. Cool to room temperature.

Step 5. Grind the liver and onions through a meat grinder. Add the oil and liquid from the pan. Mix.

Step 6. Beat the softened butter with a mixer or blender. Add liver to it.

Step 7 Beat everything and gradually add cream. Then add salt.

Oil cream

300 g butter

1 can of condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla sugar

Step 1. Bring the oil to room temperature. Start beating with a mixer.

Step 2. Gradually add condensed milk to the butter, without stopping whisking everything. Be careful that the cream does not separate. At the end add vanilla sugar.

Advice

The smaller your profiteroles, the more impressive they will appear on the holiday table. But they will take a very long time to bake. That's why I make medium buns, they bake well and don't take much effort: two portions of dough have to be baked in three batches, about 40 minutes each.

Profiteroles, eclairs, and choux buns are made from light, airy, crispy choux pastry. This dough rises in the oven, increasing in volume several times.

Custard products become airy due to the large amount of water in the dough. When steam forms inside the dough, it rises high. A large cavity appears inside the products, which is filled with various fillings and creams. Custard cakes have a smooth shiny surface. Donuts are also made from choux pastry and fried in a large amount of oil.

Choux pastry - general principles and methods of preparation

To prepare such dough, you do not need to have any long experience. It does not roll out or knead by hand. Profiteroles can be spooned onto the roasting pan or piped out using a pastry bag. For the dough to be successful, you need to know only two rules:

- the dough must have a certain temperature - approximately 70-80 degrees, in order to be hot enough, but not to curl the eggs;
- Eggs must be warmed to at least room temperature before insertion.

Before baking, the dough is heated, or “cooked.” In addition to flour, the dough contains water, butter, margarine, and eggs. The number of eggs is selected depending on the amount of flour. It is due to the eggs that the dough becomes loose, rises and fills with air. Do not add too much sugar to the dough so that it does not caramelize during heating.

Choux pastry - the best recipes:

Choux pastry for cheese eclairs

This is a recipe for quick preparation of yeast-free choux pastry. Anyone who dares to try it will not be able to remain indifferent to the unusual eclairs prepared with cheese and hot pepper (with unsweetened fillings). You can choose any fillings - meat, sweet, cream or vegetable. Fry or bake eclairs in the oven - this is simply an incomparable version of choux pastry.

Ingredients: water (250 grams), salt, butter (100 grams, you can take margarine), flour (200 grams), hard cheese (150 grams), paprika (1 tsp), cumin, eggs (5 pieces).

Cooking method:
Regular choux pastry begins by dissolving butter in water. Add flour to the boiling liquid and mix thoroughly. Remove heat and cool. Beat in the eggs one at a time, kneading well after each, grate the cheese into the finished dough and add paprika. If you use your imagination, you can add dried herbs. Fans of spicy foods can add ground or hot pepper instead of paprika. The amount of cheese is also arbitrary. But it’s simply impossible to spoil eclairs with cheese.

Place the dough on a baking sheet using a pastry bag. The easiest option is to use a regular spoon dipped in water. Sprinkle with cumin and coarse salt. Bake at 220 degrees until golden brown. The main rule when baking is not to open the oven for 10-15 minutes. If the temperature in the oven is too high, the products will first swell and then may fall. If the temperature is too low, the cakes will not rise well. You need to put a little water on the bottom of the oven - then the dough will rise higher.

Choux pastry for cakes with whipped cream

Using this recipe, you can very quickly get 12-14 cake blanks. Filling them with whipped egg whites and sprinkling with, for example, nuts is not difficult.

Ingredients: butter (50 grams), water (250 grams), salt, flour (150 grams), eggs (4 pcs.).

Cooking method:
Heat water in a saucepan, add salt and butter, heat without bringing the liquid to a boil. Pour all the flour into the pan at once directly on the fire. Mix with a whisk until a lump forms. Mix the dense dough in a lump in a circle for another 2 minutes, as a result it should separate well from the walls of the pan. Transfer it to a bowl and break the eggs one at a time. Mix the dough, knead it in a circle for 5 minutes. It should be smooth and creamy. Ideally, the choux pastry is homogeneous, shiny, and falls off the whisk in long pieces. In a preheated oven at 200 degrees, place the cakes of the desired shape at a distance so that during baking they do not come together, changing the volume. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Choux pastry for donuts

Delicious tender donuts are fried in a large amount of fat. Before you even have time to fry them, they will be solemnly eaten by your family.

Ingredients: a glass of water, butter (80 grams), eggs (4 pieces), salt, flour (1 glass), oil for frying.
Cream: 1 glass of milk, sugar (0.5 glasses), butter (150 grams), vanilla, egg.

Cooking method:
We select suitable dishes and heat the oil in water to about 70-80 degrees, add salt. Remove from heat, stir with a spoon. Put it back on the fire, stir the dough until it begins to lag behind the bottom and walls of the pan. Remove from heat, cool slightly and beat in eggs one at a time until smooth and shiny. Heat oil for deep frying. Drop the dough into the boiling oil with a teaspoon. There should be a lot of oil; it is desirable that the pieces of dough float and sink in it.

Cream: dissolve the egg in a small saucepan, grind with sugar and flour. We dilute the milk and put it on fire. Stirring, cook until thickened, cool and beat with butter. The temperature should not be lower than room temperature. Cool the finished donuts, cut them and decorate them with cream.

— The quality of eggs is very important for choux pastry. To make sure they are fresh, you can do a test: dip the egg in a glass of water. A stale egg will not remain at the bottom of the glass, but will float to the top. Eggs that float with the blunt end up should not be used at all.

- The choux pastry does not need to be kneaded with a mixer or food processor - if you get too carried away, it will not be able to rise. The dough should not be thick or runny in order for it to rise well in the oven, it should double in size.

— Products made from flour with reduced gluten content are softer and lighter.

— Butter can be replaced with margarine or concentrated fats, but it is better, of course, to use natural ingredients. Butter helps baked goods rise while baking in the oven.

How to make choux pastry at home? – Recipe with photo:

Take a saucepan or just a small saucepan with a thick bottom and pour milk and water into it. Add butter to the resulting mixture (it is better to first cut it into small pieces, so it will melt faster), as well as a pinch of salt and sugar.

Place the saucepan on low heat and, stirring the mixture from time to time, ensure that the butter completely melts. Bring the resulting solution to a boil.

While the mixture is boiling, be sure to sift 150 g of flour to get rid of possible lumps and impurities.

Pour all the sifted flour into the boiling oil solution.

Without removing the saucepan from the heat, actively stir the mass with a wooden spoon or spatula. Stir the mixture until all the flour is cooked and we form a homogeneous lump of dough that will lag behind the walls of the pan.

We transfer the resulting lump of dough into a container in which we will knead the choux pastry for eclairs and lightly knead it with a spoon, ensuring that the dough cools down to warm.

As soon as it cools down (check the temperature by touch - the choux pastry should be warm, but not burn), add the eggs to it. First, add 3 whole chicken eggs, one at a time. After each new egg, stir the dough very thoroughly until completely homogeneous.

First break the last fourth egg into a small bowl and lightly beat it with a fork. And already in this form we mix it into the choux pastry in small portions. You need to do this in order not to make a mistake with the consistency of the dough, since flour comes in different strengths, and eggs can also differ quite greatly in their weight. Therefore, you may not need a whole egg, but only half, or vice versa, if your eggs are small, then in order to make choux pastry at home you may need 5 or even 6 eggs. Therefore, you need to focus on the consistency of the dough! By the way, if you went too far with the number of eggs, and the dough turned out to be very liquid, under no circumstances add “raw” flour, this will only spoil the dough. The only way to save such a dough is to prepare the custard base again and thicken the batter with it!

The correct choux pastry for eclairs is smooth, shiny, moderately thick, and it flows out of a spoon like a heavy, wide ribbon. Well, that’s all, our choux pastry at home is ready.

We transfer it into a pastry bag or syringe, and if neither one nor the other is available, then use a thick bag or a brand new stationery file with a corner cut off.

Depending on the idea, we form eclairs, profiteroles or rings from the dough. Just don’t forget that choux pastry products expand quite a lot during baking, so be sure to leave 4-5 cm of free space between them.

We bake choux pastry products first at 200 C for 15 minutes (during this time the dough should rise and begin to brown slightly), after which we reduce the temperature to 160 C and dry the eclairs/profiteroles for another 20-25 minutes until they are completely cooked. Baking time may vary slightly depending on the features of your oven and, of course, the size of the products. During baking, we do not expose the products to a sharp temperature change, especially the first 20-25 minutes, as this may cause the eclairs to fall off. And it is also very important to completely bake the eclairs inside, since otherwise, after baking, they will also fall off and lose their appearance. As soon as the eclairs/profiteroles are ready, turn off the heat and slightly open the oven door, in this form we let the cakes cool until warm (this is not necessary, but if suddenly you haven’t finished baking the custards a little, then this method of cooling will help you finish cooking them) .

Fill the completely cooled eclairs/profiteroles with your favorite cream. In addition to the sweet version, eclairs can also be filled with savory fillings, for example, pates, mousses or even salads. Serve the filled eclairs to the table, preferably as quickly as possible. We hope that our recipe with photos gave you a comprehensive answer to the question of how to make choux pastry at home!

Delicate, airy choux pastries with cream, delicious eclairs and miniature profiteroles - all these delicacies are easy to prepare at home if you know the choux pastry recipe.

And this recipe is very easy and inexpensive.

From the given amount of products you get two to three dozen eclairs, or 4.5 dozen profiteroles, or about 15 custard cakes!

Ingredients:

• ¾ glass of water;
• half a pack (100g) of butter;
• a pinch of salt;
• 1 heaped glass of flour;
• 4 eggs.

How to make choux pastry at home:

It is more convenient to brew the dough in a non-stick container - for example, in a cast iron cauldron or in an unenamelled saucepan.

Pour cold water into it, add chopped butter, salt and heat over low heat until the butter melts and the mixture begins to boil.

Pour all the flour into boiling oil water at once and immediately stir thoroughly with a spoon.

The mass will instantly thicken. Remove the saucepan from the heat and set aside to cool.

When the dough is not hot, but slightly warm, it's time to add the eggs.

They should be added to the dough one at a time, mixing well each time.

Immediately after mixing in the egg, the dough acquires a very interesting consistency: it comes in pieces. With further stirring it becomes homogeneous again.

After adding the last egg, mix thoroughly again...

To make a homogeneous smooth dough.

The choux pastry is ready. You see how simple it is! Now you can use it to form different types of products: round eclairs, long cakes. Place them on a baking sheet lightly greased with vegetable oil (you don’t need a lot of oil, as this may cause the bottom of the cakes to crack).

In the old book, where the recipe was taken from, they recommend putting the dough through a special pastry bag or parchment bag. But I don’t have a bag, and I tried it through paper once - it was all smeared, but the dough remained on the paper. So I prefer to simply spoon out the dough with a spoon dipped in cold water (to prevent it from sticking) and slightly shape the cakes with my hands (also moistened with water). It's much easier and more convenient.

Bake choux pastry products for 30 - 35 minutes in a well-heated oven (place a baking sheet after preheating the oven) and maintain the temperature at approximately 200 C or higher. I can’t say for sure, because I have a thermometer in the oven with marks from 1 to 6, and it is unknown how many degrees the divisions correspond to. That’s why I always bake, adjust the heat “by eye”, and in recipes I write “over medium heat”, etc. If anyone knows what the divisions correspond to, please tell me!

Update! After purchasing an oven thermometer, it turned out that custard products are baked at a temperature of approximately 230C.

I baked the choux pastries in a relatively hot oven. Looking at the thermometer, I discovered that the needle had reached the 4 mark. I got scared - probably too much, and lowered the heat and opened the oven to see how the cakes were doing (they came up very well and began to brown). Don't repeat these two mistakes! Because as soon as the temperature dropped, the eclairs immediately “sat down” and turned into flat cakes. To save them, I quickly increased the fire again - and hurray! - they rose again and as a result they turned out the way custard should be: fluffy, round, empty inside (so that there was room for the cream).

The next time, I already knew that I shouldn’t open the oven unnecessarily, and if I really need to look, do it quickly, opening the oven door slightly.

Eclairs, by the way, can be filled with nothing, but simply sprinkled with powdered sugar and eaten - the cakes, even without filling, are very tasty on their own!

The list of goodies will continue to grow! 🙂 There are also eclairs with ice cream, I recently came up with them, but have not gotten around to trying them yet; What about the Swans cakes that you’ve been wanting to bake for a long time? Let's fantasize together!