a millygram of sugar

In hopes of improving my culinary skills, I have been reading more pastry books to better my knowledge on the subject. An important lesson I learnt in university is that you need to know what you are doing in order to do it properly. (Otherwise you should get out of the clinic kitchen.) The problem with recipes from such books is that, more often than not, you get products that do not turn out as well as they appear in the drool-worthy accompanying photographs. Thankfully, this was not the case in Michel Roux's Pastry. I've always maintained that the French are the best when it comes to pastries and he's proven me right with his recipes. I tested out his choux paste recipe and it worked beautifully! The puffs inflated impressively and held their shape, and the texture was amazingly light and fluffy. It was so good you could happily eat it sans filling.


But of course, they taste even better stuffed with crème pâtissière and coated with chocolate so that's what I did.



I highly recommend getting his book. It's got all sorts of pastry recipes and, more importantly, pictures to guide you every step of the way. I can't wait to test out the croissant and brioche recipes! My goal for this year is to successfully make a croissant but it's really labour-intensive and time-consuming so I'll have to wait till I'm on leave to attempt it. For now, I'll leave you with the choux recipe.
Pâte à choux -- makes 40-50 choux buns
(adapted from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury & Sweet)

Ingredients
125ml milk
125ml water
100g unsalted butter, diced
½ tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
150g plain flour
4 eggs
eggwash (1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp milk)

Directions

• Combine milk, water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan and set over low heat (picture 1)
• Bring to a boil and remove saucepan from heat
• Add in flour and mix with a wooden spoon until smooth (picture 2)
• Return pan to medium heat and stir continuously for 1min to dry out the paste
• Transfer to a mixing bowl and fit on a paddle attachment
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition, until you get a smooth paste (picture 3)
• (optional step) Using a pencil, draw staggered rows of circles (~2cm in diameter) on a baking paper, leaving about 1.5cm space between circles. (I used a nozzle for this as shown in picture 4.) Turn paper facedown on baking tray. The pencil markings should still be visible.
• Preheat oven to 180 deg Celsius
• Pour paste into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle and pipe small mounds of paste the size of the drawn circles (picture 5)
• Brush choux with eggwash, flattening the pointed ends with the pastry brush (picture 6)
• Bake in oven for ~20min or until tops are golden brown (picture 7)
• Use a spatula or tongs to separate the choux buns from the baking paper immediately after removing from the oven. The excess eggwash will cause them to stick
• Place on a wire rack and leave to cool