The CookingBites Cookalong: Choux Pastry

Shermie said:
Can't eat all those sweets like I used to in the past. Not only am I a diabetic, but I also have to take insulin injections now, so I gotta manage it closely to avoid spikes in the glucose levels.:headshake:
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You could make savoury choux rather than sweet, perhaps.
 
Oh, I just remembered something else I've been wanting to try, Parisian gnocchi. Found a lovely looking recipe with roasted tomatoes and sauteed corn and squashes.
 
medtran49 said:
Oh, I just remembered something else I've been wanting to try, Parisian gnocchi. Found a lovely looking recipe with roasted tomatoes and sauteed corn and squashes.
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I'd never heard of it! So this is gnocchi made of choux dough? I must try it too.
 
I really wish I'd made choux before - it seems to be really easy! Full notes on this tomorrow - but these aren't piped. I just used a teaspoon. They might not be perfect but hey!

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In hoping to give those dairy free éclairs a try only in planning on doing them as profiteroles filled with dairy free ice-cream and dark chocolate on the top .probably to make alongside the fig molasses tomorrow morning! Fingers crossed .else the parisian gnocchi sound good.
 
Can we extend this to cover the weekend please? I really want to try because they look so simple but I'm tied up this week with a house inspection (being tenants and I really can't defer another one). And whilst I may be able to make them on Thursday, I won't be able to write it up immediately. I was planning on the dairy free ones in the Guardian with a vanilla custard filling and a chocolate topping.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Can we extend this to cover the weekend please? I really want to try because they look so simple but I'm tied up this week with a house inspection (being tenants and I really can't defer another one). And whilst I may be able to make them on Thursday, I won't be able to write it up immediately. I was planning on the dairy free ones in the Guardian with a vanilla custard filling and a chocolate topping.
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I'll extend it until the end of March - and it can gently tick away in the background (eclipsed by burgers and bacon!) :laugh:
 
Well that was an utter failure. I've followed the recipe to the letter. Right down to the last gram. I'll have to check if I have enough cornflour left to try again tomorrow. It will be close .

Basically they smell great, but they have totally failed to rise. They are exactly the same size as when I pipped them out of the plastic bag. Nothing happened at all . The egg was even room temperature

Before cooking (recipe says 8 12cm long finger wide strips.) OK some are a touch thin and I have 9 not 8. I weighed the bag of choux batter n before hand and it was 179g in weight ,so I rounded to roughly 20g per stick weighing the bag inbetween. Just about all of them were exactly 20g hence why there are 9. The empty bag was 8g or thereabouts.

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And after cooking. At least they didn't stick!
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This was the recipe from The Guardian . I'll copy it out below. it seemed pretty straight forward to me.


Makes 8
For the choux pastry
50g cornflour
20g pure vegetable fat (such as Trex)
90ml water
1 egg, beaten

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lightly oil a baking tray and run it under the cold tap. Tip any excess water away. Measure out the cornflour into a bowl.

2 Heat the vegetable fat and water in a saucepan until it boils. Pour it into the bowl containing the cornflour, then whisk. You'll have small lumps, but don't worry. Put the bowl to one side to cool for a few minutes.

3 Add the egg, then use a stick blender to blitz the mix into a congealed custard-like consistency. Scrape the mixture into a plastic food bag, cut off the corner and squeeze out about eight finger-thick sausages, 12cm long.

4 Bake for 10 minutes, then raise the heat to 200C/400C/gas mark 6 for 10 minutes, or until the eclairs are cooked. Cool on a wire rack.

That's exactly what I did. Word for word. I even dug the stick blender out from the back of the cupboard to do this. Sadly I made part of the custard whilst waiting for other things to happen, so I now have the filling ready and set firm to paste sorry balance on the outside of the eclairs.

This was the choux batter beforehand.
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They do taste fine and like I'm expecting tbh, but I just can't see how these would ever rise to give 8 eclairs tbh!
 
Oh to find a good recipe that is just dairy free and not gluten free as well which I don't need.

I suspect I went wrong in a number of places, though I followed the recipe to the letter .
  1. The dough was very thick. I suspected it was too thick at the time I was making it ,but I can do it again this time with 1 1/2 eggs . Seems having a bantam is quite useful !
  2. Size . I think the recipe is being generous in saying it makes 8 12cm long eclairs . I'll try for 12 smaller ones I think, using more dough for each .perhaps even making them into mini eclairs or actually profiteroles.
  3. The oven temperature started lower than higher for first 10 minutes. I've never ever come across a recipe where this is needed. 180°C then 200°C. That's backwards and difficult in any recipe that had a time critical rising and inflation... It's just wrong is all in saying . I'll try 200°C throughout this time.
  4. Xantham gum is mentioned for stability (mentioned in the article you give this time round ).
  5. Drying them out in the oven afterwards ... Oven off door ajar. Not mentioned previously , it can't hurt I guess .
Thank you. They'll be no homemade custard filling this time . It too was too thick as well. And my chooks didn't lay many eggs yesterday (we suspect they are laying elsewhere at the moment plus we're putting the chicks in which is upsetting their structure up there) so I don't have enough eggs left to made a homemade custard. I'll use the powder instead. We have a very nice blend as it is ).
 
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morning glory said:
You could simply substitute plant milk for cow's milk?
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It's the replacing butter that doesn't work. Butter is not pure fat in the same way that vegetable fat like Trex or the ones in using here are 100%, mine is coconut oil hardly surprisingly. A direct replacement of these doesn't work especially in pastry. You basically end up with too much fat and not enough water using a direct replacement. Also because butter and milk contain protein and nut milks in particular do not, you can't always successfully substitute these directly either . Mostly it is better to substitute with soya milk because it has protein in it, but that still leaves you with the butter issues.
 
I don't suppose my Cordon Bleu Wellington counts as the pastry came out of a packet.
 
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