"It's all gone wrong for me"1 - no, not the hungover cry of the ethanol-loving undergraduate, but the familiar wail of another lab cock up.
Mine, sometimes; yours, occasionally; and historic, from time to time.
 
1 Bill Bailey, 2001

A Choux

Why is it that choux pastry just doesn't work? Or better still, it works sometimes, but other times it falls flat... Literally.

I have never been a pastry chef, but choux pastry has always given me no end of trouble. I say always, I didn't even like dry squirty-cream-filled profiteroles bought in shops – and was only won over when I was cooked some by a Michelin Star chef. So the standard of choux was high. The best choux is delicate, like and crispy, which is why it is great for posh French dishes like éclairs and canapés (it is also French).

Essentially, choux is very simple: butter, water, flour and eggs, with perhaps a little sugar for sweet choux. So why is it so tricky? This bothered me. If you can make something as complicated as choux out of a very simple set of ingredients, how much further could you go? How malleable and changeable are all these materials under just a little manipulation of heating and movement? What is the implication for synthesis in the lab, even something as simple as solid state synthesis? The possibilities must be endless.

This kind of idea haunts me. Yes, that's right: choux pastry haunts me!

Delia Smith is a good person to turn to for pastry problems and, as usual, she knows her choux.

I like Delia because she teaches me to drive. Strange metaphor? When I was learning to drive I couldn't pick it up unless my instructor explained how things worked. Chemistry is the same. You can go through the actions, but unless you learn which factors are important, which things to measure carefully, how vigorously to mix – your engine will stall and your choux will flop.

I have successfully made choux pastry once.

Personally, I like to think of it as like Yorkshire puddings – they have a trick to them, but the real trick is being rigorous about some basic synthetic steps. Make sure your oven is pre-heated. Do not peek: the cold air will make them collapse. Butter is melted and mixed with water to smoothly combine: do not let the water boil off.

Although maybe I just find Yorkshire puddings simpler.

Choux pastry uses plain flour (or better still, bread flour with a high gluten content), yet it rises. The egg and gluten help it rise, and it swells up with the steam from the water mixed with the butter. In the oven, the choux forms a pastry shell. The soft inside collapses, and when it comes out you have to make a small hole so that it dried out. And back in the oven to make a twice-baked pastry. Unlike with most dishes, with choux you want it as dry as possible.

Given that we have yeast and raising agents like bicarbonate of soda, the choux technique seems very convoluted, but at least now I understand the chemistry.
Posted by Rowena Fletcher-Wood on Jan 23, 2014 7:07 PM Europe/London

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