How to knead choux pastry - step-by-step recipe with photos

Eclairs, choux and profiteroles came to us from French cuisine. These are empty inside cakes that are filled with a variety of fillings. What is the difference between eclairs, profiteroles and shu? The first ones are always made of an oblong shape. This is a dessert dish. Eclairs are filled with custard, butter and other sweet creams. Profiteroles are small balls, four centimeters in diameter. They are filled with both sweet and savory fillings. But profiteroles are always served in sauce (chocolate, caramel). And if they are unsweetened, they serve as an accompaniment to broths or soups. Shu differ from profiteroles only in the way they are served. The top of the dough balls is cut off, the hollow center is filled with filling and the lid is returned to its place. Thus, original sandwiches are obtained. But despite the differences in the shape and purpose of these cakes, the choux pastry for eclairs, profiteroles and shu is made almost the same. How? We will talk about this in our article. With the exception of a few secrets that you need to know, there is nothing complicated in the process of preparing choux pastry. You just need to make up your mind and start making round and oblong pieces, which then, when they have cooled, can be filled with anything.

Choux pastry principle

How are hollow cakes made? The fact is that the dough contains a lot of liquid - water or milk. In the oven, it turns into steam, which “inflates” the dough, like a balloon. Due to the high temperature of the oven, the flour mass hardens on top with a crispy crust, but remains tender on the inside. There are few secrets to preparing choux pastry for eclairs.

First: do not open the oven door while baking. The steam will come out and the balloons will deflate immediately.

Second: follow the proportions of products indicated in the recipe. There should be enough liquid in the dough to inflate the dough. But in general, there should be no problems with Choux pastry (as the French call this type of baking). Choux pastry is good because it does not go stale for a long time. It can be stored both raw and baked. As soon as guests appear on the doorstep, we take out the hollow cakes, fill them with some kind of minced meat (and even salads) and serve.

There are, by and large, only three recipes for choux pastry for eclairs and similar pastries: with water, with milk, and with a mixture in equal proportions of these ingredients. Let's look at the methods of preparing cakes one by one. Let's start with the classic recipe, which we remember from childhood with its amazing combination of butter cream, sugar or chocolate icing and a delicate soft crust.

How to make choux pastry - recipe

To prepare the choux pastry you need:

1 glass each of flour and water;
100 g butter;
4-5 eggs;
a pinch of salt.

Let's start cooking:

Add salt and oil to the water in a saucepan and heat to a boil.
Turn the heat down to low, pour in all the flour and knead the dough for 1-2 minutes (do not turn off the heat) until it is homogeneous and stops sticking to the walls of the pan.
Cool the lump of dough to 60-70°C, beat in 1 egg and knead vigorously until smooth.
Then add the rest of the eggs in the same way. If the dough is thick after the last egg according to the recipe, add another half of the egg before it cools down.
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
On a sheet greased with vegetable oil, place round lumps or oblong sausages with a teaspoon at a distance of 2 cm. Wet the spoon in cold water each time before immersing it in the dough.
Immediately place the sheet of dough into the hot oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Choux pastry for eclairs: recipe according to GOST

Many housewives tried to make cakes the way they were made in Soviet factories, and some succeeded. The whole problem is that in the recipe according to GOST, the amount of ingredients is indicated in grams. So, water needs to be weighed, since a liter is not a mass, but a volume. You also need to measure the weight of eggs without shells. After all, they can be small or large, but according to the recipe, we need exactly 300 grams.

So, step number 1. We carefully weigh all ingredients.

Step #2. We measure out 200 grams of flour, which we immediately sift. We also need to stock up on 100 g of butter and 180 g of water. It should be said right away that the principle of preparing choux pastry for eclairs is fundamentally different from that for dumplings. In the second case, the flour is steamed with boiling water. The gluten is released and this provides the dough's gripping properties. We are not going to make anything into eclairs. So let’s move on to the next stage.

Step #3. Place butter, a pinch of salt, and water in a saucepan and bring it all to a boil. Then add all the prepared flour in one portion. Stir thoroughly.

Step #4. When all the flour is properly brewed, transfer the dough to another bowl so that it quickly cools to 60-70 degrees. Meanwhile, whisk 300 grams of eggs in a bowl. In terms of pieces, this will be five large or six standard.

Step #5. Kneading Place the eggs a little at a time into the choux pastry for the eclairs and quickly work with a spoon, stirring well so that no lumps form. You should get a semi-liquid mass that can be loaded into a cooking syringe.

What does the step-by-step recipe according to GOST prescribe for us next?

How to make choux pastry - secrets

Secrets to follow when preparing choux pastry:

Lumps of dough placed in a mold should be immediately placed in a heated oven. If the dough is not put into the oven immediately, a crust will form on the surface and it will not rise.
Eggs are added to the dough after keeping them at room temperature; if you add cold ones, then products made from such dough will not rise well in the oven.
After brewing the dough, let it cool to 60-70°C, and then add the eggs. The temperature can be measured without a thermometer - with your hand: a finger dipped into the dough can withstand this temperature.
The dough should not be higher or lower than 60-70°C; if higher, the eggs will curl and the dough will not rise; lower, the dough will become crusty and will not rise either.
It is not always necessary to use the number of eggs in the dough that is written in the recipe: the eggs can be of different sizes, and the dough should be as thick as very rich sour cream.
If the dough turns out to be thick or liquid and has already cooled down, then you can correct it only by kneading a new dough (respectively, a little runny for a thick dough, and thick for a liquid dough), and mix it into the previous dough. It is unacceptable to add flour or eggs to cold dough - it will turn into a flat cake.
The dough needs to be kneaded by hand; the mixer makes it runny and will not fit well in the oven.
Lumps of dough should be placed on a sheet of no more than 1 teaspoon; large lumps do not rise well.
The distance between the lumps of dough should be left 2 cm or more.
Before baking, grease the pan with a small amount of oil; if there is a lot of oil, the future cakes will spread and crack on the bottom, and if you don’t grease them at all, then they will stick to the bottom of the pan.
To ensure that the cakes rise well, the oven door should not be opened during the entire baking period.

Bakery

You need to turn on the oven at 210 degrees in advance. The environment in which the eclairs will be baked must be very hot so that the liquid in the dough immediately begins to turn into steam.

Step #6. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. We take a syringe and fill it with still warm mass. If there is none, transfer the choux pastry for eclairs into a tight bag, the tip of which is cut off. Lightly pressing on the bag, we plant oblong strips on the parchment. In principle, you can make round eclairs by simply scooping out the dough with a tablespoon - this will not affect the taste of the cakes in any way. The products need to be planted away from each other, because they should increase in size in the oven.

Step #7. Baking. We keep the cakes at high temperature (210 °C) for ten minutes. Then you need to reduce the heat to 180 degrees. We bake the eclairs at this temperature for about half an hour. Cool the preparations on the baking sheet. During this time, you should prepare the cream. If we have already taken up eclairs according to GOST, then we will continue to adhere to the classic recipe.

Stuffing cakes

The custard is soft and plastic. It can be easily inserted into the profiterole cavity using a pastry syringe by making a small hole in the cake crust, as you see in the photo. We have already dealt with the choux pastry for eclairs (the step-by-step recipe is given above). And making cream is even easier. It is also steamed, which is why it is called “brewed”. Mix the egg, 185 g of milk and 275 grams of sugar in a saucepan. Beat the mixture a little with a whisk. Place the saucepan on low heat, bring to a boil and simmer, stirring continuously, for several minutes. In a separate bowl, combine 320 grams of butter at room temperature with a bag of vanillin. Beat until light and fluffy. Then we move on to the next stage. We begin, without ceasing to beat, adding slightly cooled milk syrup in small portions. Finally, pour a large spoonful of cognac or liqueur into the finished cream for flavor. Fill a pastry syringe with the mixture. By this time, the baked choux pastry for eclairs should have cooled completely. Carefully make a hole in the crust and stuff the dough with cream. Cook sugar or chocolate glaze. Cover the top of the cakes with it. You can do without glaze and just sprinkle the eclairs with powdered sugar.

French classic recipe

In the homeland of Choux pastry, they believe that the dough made with just water is too hard. For profiteroles, which are served with soups or in sweet sauce, and for shu stuffed with salad filling, this quality is useful. The products do not immediately become soggy, but retain their crispy properties well. But cakes, the French believe, should be more tender and soft. And for such cases they offer a special recipe for choux pastry for eclairs. With the photos accompanying it, it doesn't look that complicated. The main condition for preparation is an equal ratio of water and farm milk (at least 3.5 percent fat content).

Algorithm of actions:

1. We start by measuring 140 grams of flour. We sift it right away. This will saturate the flour with oxygen, and therefore the eclairs will come out more airy.

2. In a pot or saucepan with a thick bottom, mix 125 milliliters of milk and water, a teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of salt. Add butter cut into pieces (110 grams).

3. Place the pot on low heat and stir.

4. After boiling, immediately add all the flour. Whisk. Note: the pan is still on the fire. We work with the mixer until the choux pastry for eclairs easily comes off the walls of the cauldron. Then we form a bun and put it in a bowl.

5. Start adding five eggs one at a time. Beat thoroughly, achieving an absolutely smooth consistency.

6. Fill the pastry bag and place the eclairs on the parchment.

7. Place the baking sheet in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. Bake for 10 minutes. During this time, the workpieces will rise, but remain white. Reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and continue baking for another half hour.

Recipe 3: Choux pastry for donuts

Delicious tender donuts are fried in a large amount of fat. Before you even have time to fry them, they will be solemnly eaten by your family.

Ingredients : a glass of water, butter (80 grams), eggs (4 pieces), salt, flour (1 glass), oil for frying. Cream: 1 glass of milk, sugar (0.5 glasses), butter (150 grams), vanilla, egg.

Cooking method

We select suitable dishes and heat the oil in water to about 70-80 degrees, add salt. Remove from heat, stir with a spoon. Put it back on the fire, stir the dough until it begins to lag behind the bottom and walls of the pan. Remove from heat, cool slightly and beat in eggs one at a time until smooth and shiny. Heat oil for deep frying. Drop the dough into the boiling oil with a teaspoon. There should be a lot of oil; it is desirable that the pieces of dough float and sink in it.

Cream: dissolve the egg in a small saucepan, grind with sugar and flour. We dilute the milk and put it on fire. Stirring, cook until thickened, cool and beat with butter. The temperature should not be lower than room temperature. Cool the finished donuts, cut them and decorate them with cream.

Secrets of Choux pastry

French pastries are more capricious. So, not only should you not open the oven door while baking, but you shouldn’t even slam it when you put the baking sheet in. And in general, it is unacceptable for anything to shake near the eclairs - the dough will immediately fall off. Another inconvenience is that cakes tend to stick tightly to the baking paper. It is best to sprinkle it with flour before planting the products. If you already know how to make choux pastry for eclairs according to the French recipe, then remember a few more tricks. The mixture in the cauldron should always be stirred with a spoon in the same direction. The same thing happens when you add flour. Beat in the next egg only when the dough has completely absorbed the previous one. This way you will control the smoothness and elasticity of the mass. You may need more or fewer eggs than five. The correct dough should not drip from the mixer whisk, but slide smoothly. Naturally, it should be uniform, smooth, slightly shiny. Above we provided a basic step-by-step recipe for choux pastry for eclairs. But French chefs recommend freezing raw ingredients first. Before baking, place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for twenty minutes. The liquid in the dough, having undergone crystallization in the freezer, will produce more steam, which will inflate the dough. The cakes should be filled just before serving or stored in the refrigerator in a plastic bag.

What is choux pastry?

Choux pastry is a variety that involves brewing all the flour or a certain part of it during cooking. That is, the product is poured with boiling water, and then in some recipes it is steamed. As a rule, the dough is unleavened, but sugar can be added. Leavening agents are not included in the composition, and this is not necessary, because the main feature is the presence of voids inside, which give the products airiness. And the resulting voluminous spaces are often filled with fillings. And that’s why choux pastry is used to make profiteroles and eclairs. But there are other equally famous dishes.

How to make choux pastry for eclairs with milk

The cooking principle is similar to the previous recipe. Pour a glass of milk into the cauldron, add a pinch of salt, butter or margarine. Just don’t bring it to a boil. When the mass begins to foam, add flour. Stir without removing the pan from the heat until the dough begins to peel off the walls. Remove from the stove and transfer to another bowl for faster cooling. Cool to 40-50 degrees. How to further prepare choux pastry for eclairs with milk? The recipe suggests using a little more eggs. But, again, they need to be driven in one at a time and thoroughly kneaded with a spatula, always in the same direction. Place profiteroles or eclairs placed on a baking sheet lined with pastry paper for five minutes in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. After five minutes, open the door just enough to insert a match into the slot. This way we release excess steam, which can cause the products to crack. Note that the recipe for eclairs with milk does not involve the use of sugar in the dough. The preparations turn out to be absolutely neutral in taste. They can also be filled with unsweetened fillings (salted cheese, processed cheese with garlic, etc.). If you want to make dessert eclairs, make a very sweet cream (with condensed milk, with chocolate, with honey).

What can you make from choux pastry?

From choux pastry you can make eclairs, round fried pies with filling, donuts, profiteroles for consomme, French Gougères, and lady fingers cake.

Baking “Lady Fingers” Cake

one and a half glasses of water;
220 g flour;
150 g butter;
5-6 eggs;
a pinch of salt.

700 g sour cream 20% fat;
350 ml cream 33% fat;
260 g sugar.

To decorate the cake you need:

40 g dark chocolate;
1 tbsp. spoon of butter.

Preparing the “fingers”:

Knead the dough and bake the “fingers”.
Boil water with oil and salt.
Add flour and brew the dough.
Add one egg at a time to the slightly cooled dough and knead.
Lightly grease the metal sheet with vegetable oil. Squeeze the dough from a pastry syringe onto a sheet with thin sticks, 5-6 cm in length.
Place the sheet in an oven heated to 190°C and bake without opening the door for about 30 minutes.
Lay out the baked “fingers” to cool.

Preparing the cream:

Beat 250 ml of very cold cream with sugar (190 g) in a mixer until thick.
Add 0.5 liters of sour cream and stir until smooth.

Cake assembly:

We assemble the cake in a mold with a split rim, about 28 cm in diameter. Pour a few spoons of cream into it and distribute throughout the mold.
We place the “fingers” tightly on the cream; if there is space between the cookies, cut several “fingers” into slices and place them in the holes.
Spread cream on top.
We also do the second layer and subsequent layers.
We put a plate on top, and some kind of weight on it - we place this structure in a cold place for 6-7 hours.
After a certain time, tip the cake onto a plate.
Whip another cream from cream (100 ml), sour cream (200 g) and sugar (70 g), and grease the cake, top and sides with it.
Melt the chocolate and butter over steam, and use a pastry syringe to make a mesh along the top and sides of the cake.
Place the cake in a cold place for 1-2 hours, then you can try it.

So, we learned how to prepare choux pastry and baked goods from it.

We like light crispy cakes, profiteroles and buns, thanks to the variety of fillings inside. They can be eaten with salty dishes or served with tea. The choux pastry used to make this pastry contains a lot of water, which is why an air chamber is formed inside it.

By filling the custard cake with butter or protein cream, we have a luxurious treat. You can deep-fry donuts from choux pastry.

Recipe with vegetable fat

Typically, choux pastry for eclairs and profiteroles is made with butter. To reduce the cost of products, some chefs use margarine. Such a substitution has little effect on the taste. After all, margarine is still melted in a moist environment - water, milk or a mixture of both. But this kind of baking turns out to be a little tough. We suggest you try one more recipe. For choux pastry for eclairs (you can see a photo of the finished mixture in the article), in this case, instead of margarine or butter, vegetable oil will be used. It imparts elasticity to the base of the cakes. Such blanks slowly become stale and remain soft. Pour one hundred grams of vegetable oil into a saucepan. Add a pinch of salt. Fill with one hundred milliliters of boiling water. Immediately add 150 g of pre-sifted flour and stir quickly. If we feel that the mass is cooling faster than we would like, return the saucepan to very low heat. As soon as the mixer attachment begins to get stuck in the dough, take a wooden spatula and continue kneading without changing the direction of the rotational movements. Remove from heat and beat in two eggs one at a time. Knead the soft and very elastic dough thoroughly. As you can see, here too sugar is not added to the choux pastry for eclairs. The recipe suggests using it only for cream. But if you want to make sweet buns, you can add a spoonful of sugar at the stage of pouring boiling water into the vegetable oil.

Another recipe using vegetable oil

The ingredients are the same, but their proportions are slightly different. And the algorithm of actions itself is different. Before preparing the choux pastry for eclairs, sift 200 grams of flour. Take a thick-walled pan, pour a glass of water and one hundred milliliters of vegetable oil. Don't forget a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of granulated sugar. Place the pan on the fire and bring its contents to a boil, stirring continuously with a wooden spatula. Add all the flour. We continue to stir in the same direction with circular movements. After a few minutes, you will see that the dough begins to peel away from the sides of the pan. Turn off the stove. When the mixture has cooled, you need to beat in the eggs little by little. After the third, see if you still need to add them? If the dough reaches the consistency of soft, homogeneous “mashed potatoes,” it means that it can be put into a pastry bag and placed on a baking sheet. This mass usually turns out thicker than that prepared in butter. Therefore, you can scoop the dough with a special ice cream spoon and plant round eclairs. Another advantage of this recipe is that the finished products do not stick to the parchment. The vegetable oil contained in the dough serves as an additional lubricant. The cakes are baked as usual: first for ten minutes at a very high temperature, and then for half an hour at 180 degrees.

For chebureks

Cooking time: 1.5 hours.
Number of servings: 8 persons.
Calorie content of the dish: 231 kcal.
Purpose: for a snack.
Kitchen: author's.
Difficulty of preparation: medium.

The recipe below with photos will teach you how to prepare choux pastry for pasties with vodka. Thanks to it, the pasties turn out crispy and appetizing, because alcohol gives the dough the desired consistency. The golden crust of the aromatic dish will not leave anyone indifferent; pasties should be served as an independent delicacy or along with warm milk or hot tea.

flour - 4 cups;
water – 1.5 cups;
eggs – 1 pc.;
vegetable oil – 40 ml;
vodka – 20 ml;
salt – 5 g.

Salt water, mix with oil, boil. Add half a glass of flour, stir the lumps, and cool.
Beat in the egg, pour in the vodka, gradually stir in the flour until the stickiness disappears.
Set aside for an hour, knead, roll out, cut out circles, fill with minced meat, fry until crisp.

A few final tips

So we learned how to make choux pastry for eclairs. In the photo the finished products look quite appetizing. But what needs to be done to make the cakes also delicious? The secret to good eclairs is the correct steam ratio. If there is too little, the dough will not rise or the desired cavity will not form in the cake. And when there is too much steam, it can tear the surface of the product. Therefore, experienced cooks, after turning off the oven, take out a baking sheet with products and make a small hole on top of each cake with the tip of a knife. This, firstly, allows excess steam to escape, the cavity does not get wet, and the workpiece remains dry. And secondly, it is better to make holes through which you will let the cream in on the still hot, soft eclair dough. When the shell cools, it may crack, and you will end up with not a neat hole, but a cracked piece. If you have chosen thick butter cream for the eclairs, then it would be wiser to cut the still warm cake lengthwise and fill it with filling. As we remember, many recipes do not use sugar, and if they include it in the list of ingredients, then in very moderate quantities. Excess sweet sand liquefies the dough, and it either does not rise or gets very burnt.