Pate a choux
Blog Entry: Thursday 08 Apr 2010
This basic French dough is named for cabbage because when baked, the rounded tops puff up to look like tiny cabbages.
It starts out fairly traditionally using flour, butter and water, but it is then cooked on the stove top as opposed to the in the oven. You simply need to bring the water and butter to the boil while slowly mixing in flour and eggs until you are left with something between a batter and a dough.
You can then get as creative as you like as this pastry is perfect for anything from gnocchi to eclairs.
Try rolling small balls that you drop onto a baking sheet and fill with lemon curd, chocolate or cream to make very professional profiteroles. If you fancy eclairs, roll the pate a choux into fingers and bake until crisp. Then fill the puffs with custard and cover with chocolate icing. Another popular use of this type of pastry is to make it into gnocchi which offers a great alternative to the usual wheat or potato dough varieties.
Find out what else you can do with pate a choux at www.SFGate.com.
Leave a reply