Choux Pastry Masterclass

Buoyed by the success of yesterday's Rough Puff Masterclass and with more bad weather in Taranaki we girls decided to continue on with a Choux Pastry Masterclass. This is the stuff that you use to make cream puffs and chocolate eclairs etc.

My mum is the cream puffs master. Whenever, we had to 'take a plate' to any kind of school or sport function Mum's backstop recipe was cream puffs. They were the things that she knocked out without needing to think, always had the ingredients in the cupboard (there's always a bottle of cream in the fridge in Taranaki...), and she knew the recipe would always work. Mum's cream puffs are a thing of beauty. Huge, light, airy and reliably overfilled - impossible to eat elegantly. Mum's classic was to fill with whipped cream and serve dusted with icing sugar. Her other variation was filled with homemade custard and topped with chocolate icing (my favourite). Today we broke with tradition and did the classic chocolate eclair combo (melted chocolate on top, whipped cream inside). You can see Grandma doing the chocolate topping in the photo. No idea how she got that chocolate around her mouth though...

Anyway, on with the recipe...


Here is what the recipe said:


Original Recipe Ingredients:


1 cup water
100g butter
1 cup flour
3 eggs


Method:


Combine butter and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove pan from heat, add flour (all in one go) and beat with a wooden spoon (don't ask me why just do as your told) until the flour is incorporated and the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly inbetween. Spoon onto a lightly greased oven tray and bake at 200C for 30min then lower temperature to 120C for 15 min until dry.


But here's what actually happened...


We weighed the butter and put it in the pot. Mum then produces this frankly TINY 1970's Temuka teacup from the cupboard and says "This is what I use to measure the flour and water when I make cream puffs". I flatly refuse to use the Temuka cup.  I don't have my own Temuka teacup! I'm worried about not being able to replicate successful baking in my own home in the absence of the Temuka teacup. Besides, everyone knows that a 'cup' is 250ml - and I'm looking at this Temuka Teacup thinking 'this looks a bit small'. Mum persists, I stand firm and produce a measuring jug. In my mind I'm thinking that perhaps this is going to be the best ever batch of cream puffs Mum has ever cooked because of my helfpful and accurate intervention.  I measure 250ml of water and add it to the butter. Then I use the measuring jug to measure a cup flour. Mum is still grumbling about the Temuka Teacup. I'm still quietly confident. I know how to measure ingredients. I'm an accurate cook. I'm a Pharmacist dammit.


The cream puffs work - but they are not as glorious as normal. About half the size and not light enough. Mum says it's because I didn't use the damned Temuka Teacup. So I took the Temuka Teacup and measured how much water and flour it actually holds. Here's the recipe that Mum has actually been cooking for the past 30 odd years:


Mum's actual recipe:


130ml water
100g butter
110g flour
3 eggs


Method as above.


Or as Mum quite sensibly points out we could just have added an additional egg to the batch we made. So the adjusted recipe would be:


250ml water
100g butter
1 proper cup of flour
4 eggs


Mum also says one should never cook with a Pharmacist.