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Choux pastry puffs

Light and simple, made from budget ingredients, ready for any filling! These choux pastry puffs come out incredibly tasty. You can fill them with pastry cream, buttercream, whipped cream, meringue, sweetened farmer cheese, dulce de leche, chocolate glaze, jam, or fresh berries and fruit. The filling can even be savory!

Anna Slavina

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Flour

175

Butter (mine is 72.5%)

Eggs (large)

Water

250

Sugar

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 19 % 7 g

Fats 32 % 12 g

Carbohydrates 49 % 18 g

207 kcal

GI: 0 / 0 / 100

Cooking method

Step 1:

How do you make choux pastry puffs? Gather your ingredients. Sift the flour into a deep bowl — that aerates it, which gives a lighter, airier pastry.
Step 2:

Pour the water into a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the butter and sugar, and bring to a boil.
Step 3:

Tip in all the flour at once and start stirring vigorously. Keep stirring until the dough comes together into a single ball. Set the dough aside and let it cool to warm — about 10 minutes. To speed up the cooling, set the saucepan in a basin of cold water.
Step 4:

Once the dough has cooled, start adding the eggs one at a time. Crack in one and beat it into the dough with vigorous strokes. Be patient and keep mixing until the egg is fully worked in, then crack in the next and keep going. Beat in 3 eggs this way and check the consistency of the dough.
Step 5:

The finished dough should be smooth and fall off the spatula in a ribbon, forming a triangle. If it's still stiff, crack the fourth egg into a bowl, beat it well with a fork, add a third of it to the dough, mix, and check. Add another third if needed and mix. I needed three and a half eggs.
Step 6:

Transfer the dough to a piping bag — I used a closed-star tip. If you don't have a piping bag, use a sturdy zip-top bag, fill it with the dough, and snip off about a 1/2-inch (1 cm) corner. You can also just use a spoon: pipe or spoon the puffs onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. I got 16 puffs about 2 inches (5 cm) across.
Step 7:

Bake in an oven preheated to 400°F (200°C) for about 10-15 minutes. Then lower it to 340°F (170°C) and bake another 10-25 minutes. The time may run a little longer or shorter — go by your oven. The finished puffs should be golden, airy, and easy to lift off the parchment, with a crisp shell and a hollow center. All that's left is to pick a filling, dust with powdered sugar, and enjoy. Bon appetit!

Be ready for the flour to need a bit more or less than the recipe says. Go by the consistency of the dough, not the exact amount of flour. For lots of useful information about flour and its properties, see this article!
Keep in mind that ovens vary. Your temperature and time may differ from what's given here. For any baked dish to turn out well, make use of the helpful information in this article!