Choux Pastry Cheat Sheet! (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you add too much egg to choux pastry? ›

If you add too much eggs, the mixture will be runny and unusable. This is what the final dough/paste should look like. If you are not sure, place some of the mixture in the piping bag with a tip fitted, and try piping.

The essential ingredients are butter, water, flour and eggs. Instead of a raising agent, choux pastry employs its high moisture content to create steam, as the water in the dough evaporates when baked, puffing the pastry.

Your dough should be shiny and smooth.

You will know it's ready when the pastry has a consistency that slowly closes in on itself once the spoon has passed through. Your choux ball is ready when you have a skin at the bottom of the pan, which takes about 2-3 minutes on medium heat.

When enough egg has been added the mixture will be glossy and thin enough that a large spoonful will fall heavily from the spoon in one lump (without shaking or tapping the spoon on the side of the saucepan), but thick enough that it doesn't slide off easily.

The Liquid: You can use water or milk, or a combination of the two. Water allows you to bake either hotter or longer (or both) without as much risk of the choux over-browning, while milk, thanks to its extra proteins and sugars, leads to a more rapidly browned crust.

The most used fat is butter, but choux pastry can be made also with oil, margarine or lard. The higher is the content of fat, the more the cream puff will be crumbly and rounded with a smooth surface. Less is the fat (compared to the flour), lighter the cream puff will be (with an irregular and cracked surface).

I've written the recipe using plain (all-purpose) flour as it's the most accessible flour globally and one that most will have in their pantry. That said, choux pastry can also be made with bread or cake flour. Bread flour has a higher protein and gluten content, resulting in a sturdier pastry shell.

It's a very simple solution: just dry them out for longer. If the recipe you use already reaches the desired colour by the end, then you can simply decrease the heat in the oven to prevent the choux from burning (or depending on how much drying is needed/time you have, you can also leave them in the turned off oven).

Potential reasons for each fault include insufficient cooling, eggs added too quickly, not beating the mixture enough, incorrect baking temperature or time, insufficient baking, and allowing the liquid to cool too much before adding flour.

Second, it is important to cook the flour for a few minutes before adding the eggs. This will help to develop the gluten in the flour, which will give the dough its structure. Finally, it is important to not overmix the dough after the eggs are added. Overmixing can make the dough tough.

What are the two most important preparation techniques for choux pastry? ›

Choux pastry has two important stages. First you cook it and then you bake it. For the liquid, you can use water or milk or a combination of both. We choose the combination of both because this way you get a nice color and tender bite, but the extra water also allows for baking at a slightly higher temperature.

Shelf-life & Refeshing your Choux

You can keep the Choux in an airtight container for up to 3 days. They will feel soggy when you take them out so it's important to put them in a 175°C oven for about 5 minutes. That will dry and crisp them back up. ..But I suggest to use,the same day you make them, so much better.

If the problem is the dough consistency, add flour one tablespoon at a time until the dough is no longer runny. After adding more flour, cook the dough over the stove for a couple of minutes to get rid of the flour taste.

Choux doesn't have a hollow center: Your dough was likely too thick from too much flour or cooking out too much of the water while it was on the stove.

Keep raw choux dough in the fridge in an airtight bag for up to three days if you're not baking it right away. Once baked, store choux pastries in an airtight container for two to three days, or in airtight bags or containers in the freezer for two to three weeks.

If the puffs collapse it means there was too much moisture in them. So either you did not dry the dough enough, or they were not cooked enough. To avoid this I recommend drying the dough really well (see below) and cracking the door of the oven open when the choux are baked.

Just add extra eggs until you get that right consistency. Chances are you may have cooked the dough too long and too much water evaporated, but it can easily be fixed by adding extra eggs.

Choux has a very light texture with a golden, crisp exterior. It doesn't have much flavor, since it's meant to be filled with pastry cream or other fillings and topped with something sweet, like powdered sugar or ganache. You may notice this recipe has some slight variations from the choux used in my cream puffs.

The puffs can be soft for the same reasons they can collapse, i.e. too much humidity. To make sure this does not happen to you be sure to dry the dough enough until it detaches from the pan after you added the flour, and bake them until golden brown.

Pâte à choux dough has undissolved solids or is not smooth. The salt or sugar hasn't dissolved properly. The dough isn't smooth because of flour lumps that haven't been mixed properly, or you added raw flour to the dough after adding eggs. Chances are there's stuff in your pastry batter that shouldn't be in there.

How do you keep choux pastry crispy? ›

Shelf-life & Refeshing your Choux

You can keep the Choux in an airtight container for up to 3 days. They will feel soggy when you take them out so it's important to put them in a 175°C oven for about 5 minutes. That will dry and crisp them back up. ..But I suggest to use,the same day you make them, so much better.