Dough recipes for eclairs and baking at home

Choux pastries always look like real works of art. The most popular eclairs. However, besides them, there are still shuas that are baked in the form of very small (up to 2 cm in diameter) balls, which are not filled with anything and are served as bread for hot dishes; as well as profiteroles - the same balls, but larger (up to 5 cm in diameter), which can have any filling.

Both eclairs and profiteroles can be covered with glaze on top and sprinkled with something. Is it possible to make choux pastry at home for any of these products?

Classic choux pastry for eclairs: recipe with step by step photos

The basis of shu, profitrolls and eclairs is the same: it is an empty bun, round or oblong in shape, strong, airy, but almost tasteless. If it is not filled with anything, it is necessary to submit some kind of dish to it, otherwise the finished product will seem bland. The basis of the test are flour, butter, eggs and water, and the proportion of the latter is very large. It is precisely due to the moisture in the oven that the buns swell and gain a cavity.

Composition:

• Chicken eggs 1 cat - 4 pcs.
• Butter 82,5% - 100 g
• Wheat flour variety - 200 g
• Cold water is clean - 1 tbsp.
• Salt - Pinch

Cooking:

1. Put the oil in a deep metal bowl, pour in the same water and add salt. On medium burner power, melt the butter, gently stirring it to combine with water, and the grains of salt dissolved. As soon as the mass becomes homogeneous, remove the bowl from the stove.
2. Add the sifted flour here, mix, trying to avoid lumps: for this, professionals recommend introducing flour in small portions using a tablespoon.
3. Now, continuing to beat the dough with a spatula, put the bowl back on the stove, but through the water bath: first, a larger bowl filled with water is placed on the hob, and the bowl with the dough is determined inside. Beat it for 3-5 minutes, achieving high elasticity, and then again remove it from the stove.
4. Enter the eggs, using the same whipping movements, mixing them with the dough. To make the process easier, it is recommended to pre-break the eggs into a separate container, gently mix (do not whisk!) The yolk and white, and then also in portions in the hot dough.
5. If all actions have been done correctly, you will get an elastic mass that stretches well behind the spatula, keeps its shape, but blurs a little. If it is too liquid, you can add some more flour (this happens if very large eggs are taken).
6. Now comes the turn of the pastry bag, instead of which you can use a regular plastic bag, which is cut into a corner (1 cm): you need to put in the dough into it, and then clamp the free edge, creating air pressure. In extreme cases, you can do with just tablespoons, which pick up a small amount of dough.
7. For shu lumps need to be squeezed out clearly from above, for profiteroles and eclairs - parallel to the baking tray, placing the spout vertically only at the very end, before tearing off the “ribbon” of the dough. Each product must be pierced from the side with a knife, allowing steam to come out during baking, and then sprinkle the baking sheet with water and send it to an average level in a preheated 200 degree oven.

Do not forget that there must be at least 5 cm between the products, because they crawl apart. And the baking sheet itself must be tightened with foil or parchment. Baking time at a temperature of 200 degrees is 10 minutes, after which the temperature is lowered to 175 degrees and the eclairs are kept in the oven for another 15-20 minutes, until golden brown appears.

Features home cooking eclairs and profiteroles

As practice shows, only one knowledge of the recipe choux pastry is not enough - you need to take into account some of the nuances of working with it.

• Eggs for brewing dough should be warm, for which they are first warmed at room temperature, and then put in hot water for a few minutes - just before the moment of their introduction into the oil-flour mass.
• Like biscuit, choux dough requires accuracy: do not open the oven door until the very end, but knead the dough clearly according to the instructions and not a minute longer - otherwise the products will lose in volume, and inside they will be too dense and may not even be baked.
• The readiness of the eclairs is checked by knocking on their surface: the sound must be deaf, and the bun itself must not sag from light strokes.
• Before filling the pastries, you need to wait for it to cool completely. Moreover, there is an important nuance here - if you intend to postpone the process of introducing the filling for several hours, remove the cooled eclairs in the bag, otherwise they will dry out in the open air.

Profiteroles and eclairs must be filled with cream, for which they can be cut along (this is true for profiteroles), or make a hole in the side with a narrow knife, and through it use a pastry syringe to inject the prepared mass.

• The classic cream for eclairs is custard cream, for which 200 ml of milk is boiled, combined with butter (100 g), add 1 tbsp. flour and 100 g of sugar, ground, continuing to warm up on the stove, the last egg injected. Boil until thickened at low power, cool slightly and injected into the prepared products.
• Curd cream, which requires 150 g of ricotta, 70 g of heavy cream (33%), and powdered sugar to taste, are considered to be less nutritious. It is not necessary to heat the ingredients, just whisk until smooth. Instead of ricotta, you can take a fat cottage cheese, which you want to rub well through a sieve or whisk in a blender.
• And the most delicious, perhaps, can be called chocolate cream, which consists of condensed milk (200 g), butter (150 g) and cocoa powder (50 g). Components again do not need to be heated, just beat until homogeneous. Often here add a little liquor for flavor.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that the above recipe for eclair custard is basic, so you can use absolutely any fillings with it, not only sweet traditional options: for example, cheese and cheese, made from fish, mashed to the state of cream, and so on. d. And, of course, the main finishing touch will be the icing.