Cream puffs: choux pastry that always rises
The cream puffs from the corner bakery, only better because they are fresh: a crisp hollow shell of choux pastry and a cloud of whipped cream. Choux sounds intimidating, but it is six ingredients and three rules: cook the flour into a ball, cool before the eggs, don't open the oven. Sixteen from one batch.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Choux paste 20 min
- Baking 35 min
- Cooling 20 min
- Filling 20 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneCook the flour
Bring the water with the butter, salt and sugar to the boil in a saucepan. When the butter has melted and the water boils, take off the heat and tip in all the flour at once. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until it comes together into a smooth ball.
Ingredients: 250 ml water · 100 g butter · ½ tsp salt · 1 tsp sugar · 150 g plain flour · 4 pcs eggs
All the flour at once into the boiling waterDry the paste
Return the pan to low heat and stir the ball 2 minutes: it should pull away from the sides and leave a thin film on the base. This drives off water so the paste can absorb the eggs later.
TipThe film on the pan base is the test: the paste is dried when it appears. Without drying, the puffs stay flat.
The ball pulls from the sides, a film on the baseCool and add the eggs
Transfer to a bowl and cool 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until lukewarm. Beat in the eggs one at a time, incorporating each fully before the next. The finished paste is smooth, glossy and falls off the spoon in a V shape.
TipHot paste would cook the eggs. Add the fourth egg cautiously, beaten, in parts: the paste should be thick, not runny. Too loose and it won't rise.
Eggs one at a time; the paste falls in a VPipe
Heat the oven to 200 °C. Put the paste in a piping bag with a round nozzle (or use two spoons) and pipe 16 mounds about 5 cm across onto a large lined tray, 4 cm apart. Smooth the tips with a wet finger.
Mounds of about 5 cm, 4 cm apartBake without opening
Bake 25 minutes at 200 °C, then 10 minutes at 170 °C to dry the insides. Don't open the oven for the first 25 minutes: steam inside holds the puffs up; cold air collapses them. They are done when golden, light, and hollow-sounding when tapped. Pierce each on the side and cool on a rack.
Twenty-five minutes without peekingWhip the cream and fill
Whip the cold cream with the icing sugar and vanilla sugar until stiff. Cut the cold puffs two-thirds up, pipe or spoon in the cream, replace the lid, dust with icing sugar. Eat within 2 hours; after that the shell softens.
Ingredients: 500 ml whipping cream, 30 % · 3 tbsp icing sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
Cut, cream, lid, icing sugar
Before you start
With custard cream
Instead of whipped cream: vanilla custard (Polish budyń) cooked with 500 ml milk, cooled under film and beaten with 150 g soft butter. It holds up better than whipped cream, but the shells still soften over time — fill no more than a few hours before serving and keep the puffs in the fridge.
Eclairs
The same paste piped in 10 cm strips, filled with cream and glazed with chocolate after baking. 12 from one batch.
Empty shells for later
Unfilled puffs can be frozen for up to a month. Refresh thawed ones 5 minutes at 180 °C and fill.
