Baked Pâte à Choux
- Total Time
- About 1 hour
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 8tablespoons unsalted butter, plus a little more for greasing the baking sheet
- Salt
- 1cup flour
- 4eggs
Nutritional analysis per serving (36 servings)
42 calories; 3 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 1 gram monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 0 grams sugars; 1 gram protein; 27 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 400 and grease a baking sheet with butter. Put the butter and a pinch of salt in a saucepan over high heat; add 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and add all the flour at once; stir constantly until the mixture pulls away from the pan and forms a ball, about 30 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and beat in the eggs one at a time; use an electric mixer if you like, and beat until the mixture is smooth. (At this point, you can cover the dough and refrigerate it for up to two days.)
- Step 2
If you’re planning on piping out the dough, scoop it into a pastry bag with a ½-inch tip, or a plastic freezer bag with a corner cut off. Pipe the pastry onto the baking sheet, or just use two spoons to form your desired shape. Cream puffs should be circles about 1 inch wide and a little over 1 inch tall; éclairs should be 3-to-4-inch fingers, about 1 inch wide.
- Step 3
Bake until the pastries are golden brown, nicely puffed up and sound hollow when you tap on them, about 30 minutes for cream puffs and 40 minutes for éclairs. Use a skewer to prick one or two holes in each one to allow the steam to escape; transfer to a rack and let cool to room temperature.
- Step 4
To fill the pastries using a pastry bag, poke a hole into the pastry and pipe the filling into it, or cut off the top caps of each pastry, spoon in the filling, and close it up like a sandwich. (Éclairs can be slit open and filled, too.) Serve as is, or drizzle with chocolate sauce.
Private Notes
Comments
Made this exactly as written. I used King Arthur all purpose flour and stirred the flour with a whisk before dipping into the measuring cup. I transferred the hot dough into my mixer and beat the eggs in one at a time. It worked perfectly. Small 1 to 1-1/2 inch puffs took 30 minutes to cook. I filled them with a finely chopped chicken and cranberry salad, and took them to a cocktail party. A fabulous finger food appetizer.
Great basic choux recipe, worked like a charm and eclair shells kept in the fridge, un-filled, for about a week and stayed pretty tasty.
I made eclairs out of half. I added 2 slices finely diced Swiss cheese to the rest of the still warm batter, plus some herb salt, and made small gougeres. Both were delicious.
I make these with plain super fine rice flour and no xanthan gum. They come out perfectly due to the high egg content.
These were so easy to make and were perfect inside, hollow and airy. I filled with diplomat creme and chocolate creme. We did eclairs and baked them 40 minutes.
It wold be helpful to note in this recipe that after the addition of each egg, to beat the paste until it goes from slippery to more sticky, and with the addition on the last egg being beaten in, that the cooled paste should stand up when a small amount is scooped up in a spoon. Slippery, limp paste will not rise.