Let’s make choux pastry (or cupcake dough): the original recipe with 1000 uses

Choux pastry, basic preparation with a neutral taste, perfect for all kinds of fillings: here's how to prepare it at home!

The puffs are a classic of pastry and are prepared with a base of choux pastry, a puffy dough also used to prepare zeppole or eclairs. The preparation of this basic dough is quite simple and the cream puffs prepared following this recipe can be stuffed in a thousand different ways , to create easy and spectacular desserts but also savory aperitifs with salmon and spreadable cheese for example!

Preparation of the choux pastry recipe for cream puffs

1. To prepare the choux pastry, first of all start by cutting the butter into cubes, then place it in a pan with water and salt. For sweet preparations you can add 1 level spoonful of sugar.

2. Place on the stove and bring to a boil at low heat. Once it has boiled, turn off the heat and add the sifted flour.

3. Mix well with the help of a whisk in order to obtain a homogeneous mixture then place again on the fire. Stir with a wooden ladle until the mixture comes off the walls.

4. At this point, transfer the pasta into a bowl and start working by adding one egg at a time to obtain a homogeneous but not liquid mixture.

5. Transfer the dough into a pastry bag and form small tufts on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, keeping them well spaced.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 220 ° C for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 190 ° C and cook for another 10 minutes.

When cooked, turn off the oven and let the puffs rest for half an hour in the oven ajar before removing them from the oven.

Tips for making the perfect choux pastry puffs

Do you also happen to prepare the cream puffs and find them sadly deflated once they are taken out of the fire? This is one of the pitfalls of this recipe, but from now on it won't be a problem anymore!

In fact, the reasons for this small hitch in the recipe could be essentially three:

• The oven . If the oven temperature is too high it could deceive you by making the sweets immediately colored on the outside, but not completely cooked inside. In fact, when the inside is still damp they tend to deflate. For this reason we advise you to do a test with a little dough before putting all the puffs in the oven, in fact each appliance is slightly different from the others and it may be necessary to slightly lower the alcohol content compared to what is indicated in our recipe.
• The times . The second reason could be that you have left the dough to rest for too long. The preparation must be without pauses. Once you have made the mixture of the cream puffs recipe (sweet or neutral) put it to cook immediately.
• The dough . The consistency of the dough should not be too soft , but thick and creamy so that it has the strength to rise and grow during cooking. Also for this trick we realize that it is a matter of experience, do some tests and you will see that the method for making cream puffs will have no more secrets for you after a few tests .

How to fill cream puffs

For the filling phase itself, you can proceed in two ways:

• For a better and more “professional” result, you can fill the cream puffs by placing the cream inside a pastry bag and making a small hole in the bottom of the pastries . Press the sac-à-poche so that the cream goes to fill the pastry, but without exaggerating. We recommend this method if your puffs are small, or if they are perfectly leavened and empty inside.
• On the other hand, if your puffs are a bit larger, or aren't quite empty inside , we recommend cutting them and stuffing them. In this way, if they are large, you will not risk using a little cream and if they are not leavened to perfection, you can remedy by eliminating a bit of dough to make room for the cream. We remind you, however, that if they are undercooked there is no way to solve: the flavor will not be in the least comparable to the original.

storage

You can keep the cooked choux pastry without filling in an airtight container for up to a week .

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