A couple of weeks ago, Les Petits Chefs baking club ventured into working with choux pastry (some of them for the first time!). Choux pastry is the base for cream puffs (profiteroles), éclairs and cheese puffs (gougères), and many people find it intimidating, but actually, it couldn’t be easier! For this session, we worked with simple equipment (we didn’t even use a hand mixer to beat in the eggs!) proving that with a bit of muscle and basic equipment, you can make these treats too!
We melted the butter and liquid then mixed in the flour…
Looks like Play Doh, huh? What you can see on the bottom of the pan might look like it’s sticking, but the slight crust is normal and actually shows your pan is at the right temperature – you just can’t leave it alone!
Once you’ve cooked the flour off for a few minutes, then you cool down the mixture so it’s not going to cook the eggs when you add them…
Adding the eggs can be tricky, and when you first add them, it looks like you’ve made a huge mistake, but if you keep on beating, it will eventually come together! And then the fun begins!
We used cookie scoops to form our puffs, though you can definitely pipe these with a piping bag, too. With 12 kids and less than an hour, we’re looking for efficiency and scoops make it simple and clean (and make the portions even so they bake evenly!).
All ready for the oven!
While they baked, we made some chocolate ganache (not pictured because #hectic) and the students whipped cream. With a hand whisk!
They whisked and whisked (taking turns – this is when having a group of bakers comes in handy!), and eventually, they got it to the “stiff peaks” stage (and turned the bowl upside down to check – phew, it stayed put!). Then came the (even more) fun part!
Our puffs baked (slightly underbaked, as you can see – they should be hollow and not doughy in the centre, but no one – except me – cared LOL), and we dipped them in the ganache…
Then (for efficiency because we had 6 minutes until dismissal), I piped the cream into the bottoms of the puffs and the kids topped them…
Not the best-looking profiteroles I have seen in my time, but, again, no one cared!
And they snuggled nicely together in lunchboxes in the pretense that they were being taken home to share when, in fact, they were being consumed not more than 5 metres from where they were made 😉
Profiteroles only a mother could love (or 12 proud kids, some of whom had never worked with choux pastry before!)
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Ah I never forget the delight of Ted making these, it’s got me hankering to whip up some choux pastry again!
I miss the pre-pandemic days when LPC would occasionally send home a care package of their exploits for Mr. Neil to sample. LOL. 🙂
As I’ve discovered … pastry doesn’t always behave like you think it should. Good on the LPCs for having a ‘go’ and doing it so well.