Choux pastry looks harder than it is and it makes a perfect dinner party dessert. Why not try it for Christmas if you don’t like Christmas pudding? I wanted to make a nice meal instead of spending lots of money on an expensive evening out. It just shows you can enjoy good food even when you stay at home. Why not get a nice bottle of nice wine and enjoy. The recipe is a Lorraine Pascale one with the addition of a melted chocolate finish! Grab a copy of Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale for more of her gems.
Recipe (serves 4-6)
Choux pastry
- 70g plain flour and extra for dusting
- 60g butter
- 150ml buttermilk (or milk with a squeeze of lemon juice)
- Pinch of salt
- 2-3 eggs
Coffee and vanilla cream
- 200ml whipping or double cream
- 40g icing sugar
- 2 drops of vanilla extract
- 1tbsp instant coffee powder
Chocolate topping
- 125g milk chocolate, or a combination of half milk and half dark chocolate
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180oC and dust a large baking tray with flour.
- Heat on a low heat the butter and buttermilk in a pan until melted. Turn up the heat so that the mixture reaches boiling point. Add the flour and salt and remove from the heat. Stir quickly until a ball of mixture forms in the saucepan.
- Leave the mixture to reach a lukewarm temperature and stir in the egg bit by bit, until a thick but glossy mixture is formed. You may not need all the eggs and make sure the mix is thick enough to hold on the back of spoon. But not too thick that it won’t fall from the spoon when nudged.
- Pipe the choux mix into small round buns of about 2cm high. Make sure you leave about 3cm in between each choux, so that they don’t grow into each other. Cook for about 20 minutes until lightly golden. They should easily peel away from the tray.
- Take the choux out of the oven and then make a small hole in the bottom of each bun. Place back in the oven for a minute or two to prevent a soggy inside. Leave on a cooling rack.
- Whip the ingredients for the cream together until a thickened light and fluffy consistency forms. The mixture will thicken even more in the fridge.
- When the choux are cool, pipe the cream filling inside them, making sure to fill them with plenty of the mixture.
- Melt the chocolate on 30 second zaps in the microwave. Drizzle over the top of the choux.
Its now time to enjoy! Hopefully this will inspire your festive creations over the next few weeks. If you are not keen on cream, why not fill them with coffee crème Pâtissière? Other flavour ideas of mine include vanilla and pistachio!
Follow my blog on twitter @sophlaetitia