Airy, Loose Choux Pastry …

Choux….

1. 1 ……. is an egg-rich, unsweetened, tough dough. Characteristic is the “burning off” of the ingredients water, fat and flour in the saucepan to a dumpling.
2. Already when it burns, the starch of the flour gelatinizes and the adhesive protein coagulates, so the baked goods cannot form lumps; a skin-like, dense crust is created.
3. The loosening takes place through the incorporated air and the moisture of the dough. The steam generated during baking pushes the crust up as long as it is elastic. One or more large cavities are created in the baked goods.
4. Burning dough can not only be baked in the oven or in a fat bath, it can also be cooked in broth as a soup.
5. Burning dough is sometimes added to other doughs to loosen them.

Dough preparation:

1. Put the water, butter or margarine and salt in a saucepan, bring to the boil, switch off the hob, remove the saucepan from the hob.
2. Pour in the flour all at once, otherwise lumps may form. Process everything into a smooth dough with the dough hook of a hand mixer.
3. Put the saucepan back on the still warm hob and stir and burn the dough in the residual heat until the mixture loosens from the pot as a dumpling and a white dough skin forms on the bottom of the pot. Remove the saucepan from the hob.
4. Stir an egg into the hot mixture and let the dough cool down.
5. Mix the remaining eggs into the batter one at a time. If the eggs are added all at once, they will not combine with the batter.
6. From the fourth egg onwards, check the consistency of the dough. If the dough is shiny and tears off the dough hook in such a way that long dough tips get stuck, no further egg is needed.
7. Only stir in baking powder at the end.
8. Now you can process the dough according to the recipe.

Some more practical tips on the way :-))

1. 1. Measure the ingredients exactly, otherwise the proportions will not be correct and the dough will not get the right consistency.
2. 2. Eggs are necessary in choux pastry as a binding and loosening agent. The number of eggs depends on the consistency of the dough. If the dough is soft, the pastry will collapse. Too firm a mass does not propel enough high.
3. 3. To help loosen the dough, stir in the baking powder only after the eggs have been added. Before that, the dough is still too warm and the loosening effect of the baking powder would be lost.
4. 4. Leave enough space on the baking sheet between the individual pieces of dough, as the choux pastry will rise a lot during baking.
5. 5. You must never open the oven door during the baking process. Because if the crust is not firm enough, the pastry will collapse.
6. 6. Removes the pastry from the tray immediately after baking. For some pastries, such as B. cream puffs, cut an opening so that the steam can escape and the pastry dries.
7. 7. Baked goods made from choux pastry get their flavor from a sweet or savory filling. You should serve filled pastries immediately, as choux pastry becomes soft due to moisture.
8. Try it out and you will find that making choux pastry is sooo … easy. Have fun trying!