pâte à choux

pâte à choux, choux pastry that can be made into eclairs, profiteroles, cream puffs, beignets...etc.

This all begins when we saw bread papa at soga, which sell cream puffs only with variety of cream filling, my craving for sweet prompted me to try a piece of the classic vanilla flavor. At first, I wondered why a choux pastry with some cream in it can cost more than hkd15 per piece. As much as I felt this was a ripoff, I regretted getting a piece after I tasted it. The dough was not eggy enough with very heavy taste of flour, no almond on top, very bland in terms of flavor. The filling was just okay, I don't think they made pastry cream properly, and so obvious that they didn't cook the cream long enough to evaporate the excess liquid from the paste.

So not satisfied with a commercial vendor, I decided to make a batch on my own. I made the pastry cream with vanilla beans and generously filled up the choux pocket, and then dipped the top of the choux with dark chocolate.

It was a lumpy dough when first started, the mixture was carefully heated and mixed rigorously into a right consistency.

Later transferred to a stand mixer, to further beaten it into a smooth creamy dough.
All puffed up after 35min. These needed to be handled with careful cooling to sustain their puffiness..unfortunately they were a bit burnt due to wrong timing.. basically forgotten to turn off the temperature while cooling down..