Pâte à Choux (Cream Puff Pastry)

Adapted from The French Chef Cookbook by Julia Child (Alfred A. Knopf, 1968)

This is a wonderful cookbook with very clear instructions and many excellent recipes. It remains my favorite “Julia,” and I have them all.

This sounds difficult. It isn’t. It only looks intimidating because the instructions are long. But it is worth every bit of effort when the first guest swoons with pleasure.

Pâte à Choux (Cream Puff Pastry)

1 cup water
6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour (measured by sifting directly into the measuring cup and sweeping off the excess)
4 large eggs

Place the water, butter, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. When the butter has melted and the water is bubbling, remove the pan from the heat. Immediately add the flour all at once and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until thoroughly blended.

Return the pan to moderate heat and continue beating until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan clean, leaves the spoon clean, and forms a light film on the bottom of the pan.

Remove the pan from the heat again. Make a depression in the center of the mixture and break one egg directly into it. Beat thoroughly until the egg is absorbed. Continue with the remaining eggs, beating them in one at a time until fully incorporated.

You now have pâte à choux. Use it while still warm or it will become too stiff to handle easily.

Forming and Baking Small Puffs

2 lightly buttered baking sheets (14-by-18-inch sheets if possible)
A pastry bag with a ½-inch tube or a soup spoon (I use a spoon)
2 cups pâte à choux
1 egg beaten with ½ teaspoon water
A pastry brush

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Using a place spoon (sometimes called a soup spoon—the largest spoon in a standard place setting, not a teaspoon), form circular blobs of pâte à choux about 1 inch in diameter and 1 inch high, spacing them about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets.

Brush the tops lightly with the egg glaze, smoothing them into shape if necessary with the flat of the pastry brush. Be careful not to let the glaze drip down the sides onto the baking sheet because that can interfere with the puffs rising properly.

Bake in the upper- and lower-middle levels of the oven until the puffs are golden brown, crisp to the touch, and doubled in size, about 20 minutes.

Turn off the oven. Remove the pans briefly, pierce each puff with a small knife to release steam, then return them to the turned-off oven for 10 minutes to dry out further.

(Julia Child says baked and cooled puffs may be frozen, and I, for one, would never dispute what she says, although I have never tried it.)

To make profiteroles, fill the puffs with Crème Pâtissière or your favorite ice cream and top with chocolate sauce.

For ice cream, I particularly like Häagen-Dazs vanilla (not vanilla bean), coffee, or Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

The easiest chocolate sauce is simply to heat heavy cream and add chopped bittersweet chocolate, whisking until melted and smooth. Use enough chocolate to make the sauce as rich and chocolatey as you like. It is delicious, although not particularly shiny.