Make your own choux pastry at home with this easy to follow tutorial! Just a handful of ingredients and some piping for the classic French pastry in your own kitchen.
I didn’t start making choux pastry until this year because it always seemed like a very daunting baking task. What do you mean I have to cook the batter before I bake it off? How can you tell the batter is ‘cooked’ enough? What if my pastry doesn’t puff up? What if it spreads too much? What if it bakes unevenly?
I finally decided to overcome that fear about a month or two ago. Since then I have been making…SO. MANY. CREAM. PUFFS. I have made so many good ones (and sad deflated bad ones). I am sharing all the things I learned through trial and error in this choux 101 to help you achieve the perfect puff.
Choux pastry, also known as pâte à choux, is a light, airy, crispy pastry used to make eclairs, cream puffs, croquembouches, gougères, crullers and more. Choux pastry in its basic form is made from ingredients you probably already have in your pantry — it contains only water, milk, butter, flour, and eggs.
One unique feature of choux pastry is the batter is gently cooked on the stove top before the addition of eggs and baking. The initial cooking causes the starch in the flour to gelatinize, which will help the pastry hold onto steam and puff up.
The pastry relies heavily on the amount of moisture present to create rise and puff in the pastries. The steam created when the water evaporates in the oven is what creates the hollow puff.
Choux requires the simplest of ingredients but it requires some practice to create the perfect puff. I have found that practice does indeed perfect — after you make choux several times, you will be able to distinguish a proper batter from a batter that might cause a soggy or overly stiff pastry.
There are two go-to rules that help with achieving the perfect choux:
1. Stick to the ingredients and their measurements. Making choux is one of those recipes I like to have a scale on hand. I have made choux several times and a 10gram difference of eggs (a major ingredient in choux) made a biiiig difference in the results.
2. Don’t open the oven door while the choux is baking. You don’t want a deflated choux!
Some cream puffs have a crunchy cookie-like top — this is calling craquelin. I think craquelin makes any cream puff extra delicious; it adds more flavour and a different texture to the puff.
The craquelin is extremely simple to make and requires only three basic ingredients: butter, brown sugar, and flour. Adding craquelin to your choux pastry also helps the pastry rise more evenly the oven.
After the cream puffs have baked and cooled, the possibilities for the cream puffs are endless. The simplest route would be to fill the puff with sweetened. whipped creamed. When I have more time on my hands, I like to fill my cream puffs with two different types of filling — a richer custard or ganache and a lighter whipped cream.
Recipe
How To Make Choux Pastry
Description
Equipment
- Measuring spoons
- Digital kitchen scale
- Rubber spatula
- Mixing bowl
- 2 inch (5 cm) circular cookie cutter
- Stand mixer
- Saucepan
- baking sheet
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
Craquelin
- 25 grams unsalted butter, softened
- 25 grams brown sugar
- 25 grams all-purpose flour
Pâte à Choux
- 57 ml water
- 57 ml whole milk
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 57 grams unsalted butter
- 70 grams all-purpose flour
- 110 grams large eggs, lightly beaten
Instructions
Craquelin
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix with rubber spatula until smooth.
- Roll out the craquelin dough to ⅛-inch in thickness. Use a cookie cutter and cut out twelve 2-inch circles. Set aside.
Choux
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- In a saucepan, combine the water, milk, sugar, salt, and butter. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and immediately add in all the flour. Quickly stir in the flour, using a rubber spatula, and return saucepan back over medium-high heat.
- Continue to stir the mixture, without stopping, until the paste is smooth and shiny, about 1-2 minutes. It will pull away from the sides of the pan and leave a thin coating of cooked paste on the bottom when ready. The texture should resemble mashed potatoes.
- Transfer the paste to a stand mixer bowl fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low for the choux to cool down.
- While the mixer is running on medium, gradually stream in the lightly beaten eggs. Mix until well combined.
- Transfer the pâte à choux to the prepared piping bag with a round tip.
- Pipe out 12 choux mounds onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving roughly 2 inches (5 cm) between each puff. If you are making choux with a craquelin top, this is when you want to add the craquelin to the choux mounds.
- Place the baking sheet in the oven and immediately bake choux puffs for 35 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet and turn down the oven to 325°F (160 °C), then bake for 10 minutes more until choux are deeply golden.
- Remove from oven and set on wire rack to cool.
Cindy says
Can u do a video tutorial??
Kris Osborne says
Thanks for the suggestion, Cindy. We’re starting to do videos, so we’ll keep that in mind for future!
Heba says
How long to do these keep? Can I bake a day or two ahead before adding filling?
Sophie Mackenzie says
Hi Heba, the baked choux can be stored in an airtight container for two to three days, or in airtight containers in the freezer for two to three weeks before filling.
Syaz says
Hi! Can you share how do you pipe a choux mound to get big pretty puffs like yours pls? Do you swirl or just press onto one point and let it build up?
Kris Osborne says
Hi Syaz, Press onto one point and let it build up. Then flick before getting the “tail”. If you get a tail, you can just tamp it down gently with a clean, wet finger.
a says
These measurements are a little strange…57mls?
Also the craqueline, I found more flour and sugar was required for it to be rollable.
Kelly Neil says
Hi a, thanks so much for your comment! We’ve added this recipe to our priority list of posts to re-test and update! Thanks so much for pointing it out to us, and for visiting.
reena wong says
how long do i bake them if i want to make 24 instead of 12?
Kelly Neil says
Hi Reena! The baking time will be the same if you double the recipe, however, we recommend piping the pastry onto two baking sheets.
Megan Taylor says
Fantastic recipe. Worked perfectly first time. Thank you for sharing.