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Choux Pastry
Uploaded: Feb 28th, 2018
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Flavor: Sweet with underlying buttery tones.
Texture: Light, airy with hollow center and crunchy outer shell.
Key Ingredients: Eggs, butter, flour.
Equipment: Wooden spoon and some elbow grease.
Optional: Standing mixer or hand mixer with paddle attachment.
Choux Pastry can seem a bit intimidating, however. it's more time consuming than difficult to make. It has several steps, but once you accomplish those, you're bound to be successful in this endeavor.
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I will be sharing how to make to choux pastry for these puffs and you can fill them with either sweet or savory fillings.
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If I had a preference, it would be the savory fillings. Those delicious custards though, make things equally as scrumptious.
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One of my favorite ways to fill these up, would have to be my easy chicken salad. I use this chicken in sandwiches, but they work so well in these puffs. In the original recipe I shared on YouTube I used canned chicken, however through the years I have preferred using freshly cooked chicken blended with my emergent blender to create a creamy chicken filling paste. You can find my Instant Pot creamy chicken salad sandwich recipe here.If an emergent blender isn't available, you can of course use the canned chicken version.
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Another great thing about this recipe, is the simple basic ingredients it takes to make these.
Perfect for an appetizer or little finger foods for any gathering these are sure to be a crowd pleaser.
Pate a choux
Choux pastry, also called pate a choux, is a dough made with basic ingredients such as water, flour, eggs, and butter.
There is no leavening added to our dough, but by the mixing of the eggs and the steam during the baking prosses, our dough "puffs" up which gives it the nickname for puffs. This puffing up, creates an open, hollow center which can then be filled with fillings of your choice, sweet or savory. Cream Puffs and eclairs are made with this dough, however some recipes vary with ingredients.
My recipe for example has a bit of sugar. Sugar for me, enhances the flavor of the dough, however I try not to add too much to where it throws off the recipe and of course we want this to be a base for our dish not the star. Personally, the fillings are what shines in choux pastry, the dough itself is a just simple shell that holds all the goodness.
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Cooking Process
While we will be baking our choux pastry dough, the first and crucial part of making this dough is cooking it on the stovetop.
First, we bring out water to boil, melt our butter into the water, add in flour, sugar and salt then combine all these ingredients.
Cooking them on the stovetop takes the starch of the flour and gelatinizes it, which in turn locks in moisture and retains a firm structure to pipe onto our parchment paper lined baking sheet.
During baking, that process of cooking it on the stovetop will allow our pastry to steam and then puff up.
It's important to continue to cook our dough on the stovetop for about four to five minutes to ensure all the excess moisture and liquid is cooked out, and while cooking a film form at the bottom of our pot.
As a visual aid, that film needs to form and then stick, essentially, to the bottom of our pot, and that's a good indication that our dough is drying out enough to help it hold its shape.
Sweet or Savory
You know, one thing is for sure, when making choux pastry, you typically find it filled with something sweet, like a diplomat filling, whipped creams, you name it! Even when making a croquembouche, where that caramel spun around, let's face it - sweet filled pate choux is wildly more popular than savory.
However, let me try and convince you that savory filled "puffs" are so much better! Okay maybe I won't be able to convince you unless you try them yourselves, but maybe then you can see what's all the hype about these savory puffs!
I grew up having these and they were sure a treat! It was something that was sold as a finger food at parties, and I can definitely see why!
These little bites, filled with a delicious and creamy savory filling, are a perfect finger food for any occasion. Seriously, little ones and adults all love to snack on these! The filling I use is a creamy, chicken cilantro salad filling, paired with the crunchy puff, it works as a perfect little sandwich. Mess free (for the most part), simple to put together and a crowd pleaser, what more do we need!
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Simple Ingredients
1. In a large saucepan, add in your one cup of room temperature water.
2. Slice your stick of butter into cubes. 1 stick of butter is 1/2 cup of butter.
3. On medium heat, add your cubed butter to the water and melt.
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3. Bring to a gently boil.
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4. Add in your flour.
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5. Turn off heat.
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6. Constantly stir your flour and water until it forms into one uniform dough.
7. Turn your heat back on to medium low and keep stirring to evaporate any extra water.
8. Once that film starts to form at the bottom of your pan, stir for an extra 2 to 3 minutes then place your dough into a heat safe bowl.
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9. You want this dough to cool for about 5 to 10 minutes before we add in our eggs. We don't want scrambled eggs, so it's important to cool the dough for a several minutes.
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10.Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
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11. Add in your eggs one at a time.
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12. After each egg, mix well for about two minutes until the dough starts to come together.
It will first separate but continue mixing until it's combined and comes together.
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13. Place dough into a piping back with a tip. I use 2D for a swirl shape on my puffs.
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14. Pipe about two-inch circles going around and on top of each other (See video below) or just use a regular large tip to pipe 2-inch mounds.
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15. Beat 1 egg with a tablespoon of water to create an egg wash.
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16. Gently brush your egg wash on each puff.
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17. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown.​​
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Tip: If your puffs start to deflate, they aren't thoroughly finished baking. Place them back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes to finish cooking through.
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