Pâte à Choux

Although pâte à choux is made from the basic flour-liquid-fat combination of other pastry doughs, unlike the other doughs, it is leavened through the addition of eggs and cooked before it is shaped. It falls somewhere between a batter and a dough. The initial dough is formed by beating flour into a heated mixture of water, butter, sugar, and salt. The heat causes the flour to swell and form a paste. The paste is then cooked on the stovetop, where it is beaten constantly to pull out moisture and dry the pastry enough to enable it to absorb the eggs. The French term for this process is dessécher. The paste is then removed from the heat and beaten to develop the gluten structure and to cool slightly so that the eggs can be added safely. If the eggs are added before the mixture has properly cooled, they will begin to cook and will not blend into the paste. The eggs are beaten in, one at a time, with the number dependent upon the size of the eggs, the amount of moisture in the air, and the amount of moisture that has been extracted from the paste during the cooking period. Using the correct amount of each of the basic ingredients is crucial in the formation of a successful choux paste.