At the extremes of these ratios, some minor problems emerged—splitting and deforming at the lowest end of the butter spectrum, and emerging with a slightly dry and pasty texture at the highest end when combined with the least amount of water—but most of the permutations came out well.
Ultimately, we settled on a very classic ratio of four large eggs, one cup liquid, and six tablespoons butter to one cup of flour. It works well across a range of applications, is most in line with the majority of other choux recipes, and should produce excellent results in just about any recipe for which you might need choux. This ratio flexibility, of course, doesn't mean one should be sloppy with measurements when making choux.
Most importantly, the flour should be measured by weight, not volume. As Stella has demonstrated before , flour is a compressible powder, meaning that depending on how you load up the cup of flour, you can pack wildly different amounts into it.
You want reliable choux? Stop fussing about a teaspoon of egg here or a tablespoon of water there and start weighing your flour. That'll take almost all of the guesswork out of the equation. Once your ingredients are weighed and measured, it's time to cook the panade. This begins with bringing the liquid, butter, and salt plus sugar, if you're using it to a boil.
If you just drop a huge block of butter into the pot, you may have to let the liquid boil longer as you wait for the butter to melt, which will lead to more evaporation. Given my ratio tests, it'd probably still be fine, but why add that variable if you can control it? As soon as the liquid hits its boil and the butter is melted, you take the pot off the heat and fully mix in flour. This is another stage at which traditional recipes are really unhelpful. They tell you to cook the panade until a film forms on the inside of the pot and the mass of dough pulls together into a nice ball.
There's nothing wrong about any of that—those things do happen—but they're vague enough that a home cook could easily undercook or overcook the panade here. The solution? Break out your instant-read thermometer. The reason is simple if you understand the science: You need to gelatinize the starch in the flour.
Get the panade hot enough and the starch will properly hydrate and swell, readying it to thicken the choux as the eggs get mixed in. Lots of guides to choux talk about this step as important for drying out the panade so that it can absorb more eggs later. But while some drying does occur, it's really not what's most important here.
The evaporation of liquid that happens in the two or so minutes it takes to cook the panade isn't going to drive off all that much water.
Instead, it's the gelatinization of the starch that both traps water important for that blast of steam for a good rise during the second cook and properly thickens the batter so it can take the eggs without becoming as thin as a traditional batter. Once the panade has cooked, it's time to incorporate the eggs. It's most easily done in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, and there are really only two important things to know here.
The first is that you want to let your panade cool down a bit before adding the eggs, since there's a risk of cooking them prematurely if they hit it while still hot. After that, just make sure to beat the eggs in one at a time, letting each one fully incorporated before adding the next. If you try to put too much egg in at once, you'll end up with egg soup with bits of thick panade floating in it, and no one wants that.
For those who don't have a stand mixer, yes, you can add the eggs by hand, right in the pot where you cooked the panade. Same rules apply: cool the panade down first, then beat the eggs in one at a time. It takes a little elbow grease but isn't too hard. That's it, you've made basic choux pastry that can now be used all sorts of ways. It will work in any recipe that calls for choux. That said, if you're perfecting a specific recipe that uses choux, you may want to optimize it for that purpose, for example, opting for milk over water for enhanced browning in a shorter time something that can be useful for smaller choux puffs that cook more quickly , or even reducing the water content of the panade from one cup to three quarter cups if you want a slightly drier choux puff this could be helpful if it's going to hold wet fillings like ice cream without softening too quickly , but those small tweaks aren't at all required, and are better left to a discussion of those specific recipes.
At this point, you can safely let the choux rest at room temperature for up to a couple hours before using. Some say it performs better after an hour or two of rest; my testing didn't show an obvious enough difference to say you shouldn't use freshly made choux, but resting also isn't a bad idea. Just make sure you keep it sealed in a pastry bag or wrapped tightly with plastic to prevent a skin from forming. In a pinch, you can refrigerate uncooked choux paste for longer—some sources claim up to three days and others advise freezing for up to three months —but in my testing I found basic choux to be so easy to throw together in a matter of minutes that it was hard to imagine why a home cook would need a reserve of choux in the fridge or freezer for such lengths of time.
What's most helpful to know is that if you can't cook your choux right away, you can safely sit on it for a while, but generally it's better to make it when you need it.
There are so many ways to cook choux batter, from baking to frying to poaching, that there's no way to cover all the possibilities in this article for basic choux. But since baking is one of the most common methods, it helps to offer just a few general tips on that here. Of all the warnings and inscrutable advice people offer for choux, this crucial one is usually left out: know your oven, track its temperature, and adjust accordingly.
It's one of the most significant variables, and, as I found in my own testing, can be the secret culprit when choux goes wrong. An oven can seem so straightforward. Set the temp, give it time to fully heat, then bake in it. But stick an oven thermometer or probe in, and you may be shocked to find that most ovens don't run true to temp.
They can be much cooler or hotter than the dial setting indicates, enough to seriously derail the baking of something like choux. Worse, even if you get an oven running at the right temp, some fluctuate a little too dramatically over time as the heating element turns on and off, or don't recover their heat quickly enough after you've opened and closed the door to put the choux inside.
This happened to me while testing this recipe. At home, my oven is calibrated well. I always have three dial thermometers in it, and add a digital probe when I want to know its exact status from moment to moment. And in all my testing, my choux puffed up perfectly every time.
If I opened the oven door and its temperature dropped, my oven kicked back on and regained its heat in just a few minutes. When it came time to cook some choux in our test kitchen for the photoshoot, I used the wall ovens, which I know can be temperamental. I spent the first couple of hours tracking their temps and changing the settings until the ovens were where they needed to be.
My choux puffed and then sank. If you're experiencing problems with your choux or anything else you're cooking , a careful examination of your oven's temperature settings and cycles should be one of your first steps. If you decided to freeze the choux buns, don't forget to thaw them first ideally on a wire rack and then add to the oven for about 10 minutes to crisp up. How do you keep profiteroles crisp? Store the puffs in an airtight container for up to 2 days and re-crisp them in a low oven for 5 minutes on the day you intend to use them let them cool before filling.
For the filling we suggest you use a creme patissiere rather than just whipped cream. You can find plenty of creme patissiere recipes on-line. How far in advance can I make choux pastry? How far in advance can you make a croquembouche? Do Ahead: Croquembouche can be assembled 8 hours ahead. Chill until ready to serve. How far in advance can you fill cream puffs?
Can Cream Puffs be made in advance? Yes, these are easy to make ahead of time. The shells can be baked up to two days in advance, and stored in an airtight container. Can I freeze unfilled profiteroles? Remove them from the baking sheet and store in an airtight container in layers, with a sheet of freezer paper or parchment paper between each layer, until you are ready to bake the dough. You can freeze them for up to 2 months, but they are best when baked as close to fresh as possible.
What is the difference between cream puffs and profiteroles? They all may be filled and topped the same way. Thank you so much for all the tips. And great job. Thank you for these great tips. I have made a batch today with such confidence and they turned out perfectly. Hi, I made these with my dad and we are unsure how we messed them up. The bottoms concaved and the the shells only puffed up a little.
Any advice? Hi, Colleen. Did you cool the dough before adding the eggs? How many eggs did yo used? And what was the consistency of the batter? Too runny batter causes flat shells too. Did you notice if the shells were puffy in the oven and they collapsed after they came out of the oven?
We transferred the dough to a metal bowl and it took a long time for it to cool before adding the eggs. Even with mixing it took over 15 minutes to cool and it may not have been cool enough. Plus we may have over mixed it. We did use 5 eggs because it seemed too thick without the 5th egg but next time I may try 4.
Looks like we will have some trial and error until we get the perfect pastry shell. Thanks for the suggestions! The taste was great, just what we hoped for… looking forward to adding a nice Italian pastry cream to it eventually. Thanks for your great info and instructions for making choux pastry! I made two batches that had to be thrown away before I came upon this recipe and tried one more time — and this time my cream puffs were perfect and received rave reviews!
Yay, so happy you came across my post and that it was helpful!!! Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing your feedback! I hope you can read this.
I have this problem. It was so frustrating that my whole batch was like that. Hi, Michael. If so, what kind brand of parchment paper did you use? I just noticed that I was using wax paper instead of parchment paper my bad.
Hi I got a beautiful choux au craquelin that was delightfully crisp the day it was baked. I kept the empty shells in an airtight container after they cooled but the very next day they become soggy. Is that normal or did I do something wrong? Hi, Cheri. But for unfilled eclair shells, they usually stay crisp when stored in an airtight container. I like mine to stay crispy. I wanna try making this twice this week—once for Wed and once for Sunday or Monday of next week. What would taste fresher on Sunday?
Hi, Christin. You can refrigerate the dough for up to 2 days, and bake the puffs the day before serving. Or you can bake the puffs and freeze them until the day of serving. Hi, I just made choux puffs, they really puffed up, crisp shell. Thank you, Roxana. Hi, Roxana. So, choux dough is made with lots of eggs. Once cooled, or chilled completely, the egg taste subsides a lot. Also, once you fill the choux pastry with the filling, everything should taste balanced. Hope this helps, and I really hope you were able to enjoy them with filling.
Thank you for your feedback! Great tips! Tried this recipe for the first time today and they turned pretty good in terms of taste. They were light a crisp too. Some not much at all to even really make any space in the middle. The ones that did puff out some did have a space. I thought they looked a little small when I piped them. Very detailed recipe by the way. Really appreciate how you explain not only what to do but why. Hi, Daniel.
Thank you for your feedback and providing details! Mine are a little wider than a finger, before baking. Too much moisture content in the batter. Also was your batter too runny? If so, you may have added a bit too much egg. Too much flour can make the batter too dense, thus prevent rise. How did you measure your flour? By cup or weight?
I highly recommend weighing the ingredients.
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