Cream Puffs Madness!

Hello everyone! This is my first attempt in baking cream puffs and I hope to receive your valuable comments  as to how I can do it better. I believe there are still room for improvements, especially on my éclairs (which I failed, on both tries sadly!)

Anyway, here’s the recipe I used for the choux pastry. It makes about 15 mini cream puffs!

40g plain flour

¼ level tsp salt

70ml water

1 level tsp sugar

25g butter

1 egg

Before I begin, I went to youtube to view videos on how to go about making the choux pastry. By the looks of it, the preparation looked very simple. Not until I started on my own… This was the outcome of my paste and the puffs on my first trial! Such failure L

As you can see, my batter was not thick like how it should be. Reason being, when I was beating egg into the mixture, the paste turned out to be sticky and elastic. I thought that should not the case, hence I added another egg to the paste.

Upon baking, I did not watch the baking temperature carefully hence the oven became too hot. The pastries rose, however, the exterior was already baked within the first 15 minutes. Choux pastries require baking time of about 30 minutes. Hence, the interior was still mildly "wet" and not fully baked, and the pastries started to flatten when it was left to cool.

I called up my group mate, Azyan and she came to the rescue. She told me that one egg should be sufficient as the paste is meant to be sticky and elastic. This time, I followed the recipe diligently and took note of the baking temperature and time. And, these are the outcomes of my batter and choux pastries…

Yes, my éclairs were burnt despite them being under my watch! Hmph! But I think my oven has the tendency to heat up too quickly? Or was the paste too little for éclairs? I need to give the éclairs another try next time. But nonetheless, my puffs turned out the way it should be! It rose and did not deflate, not too soft and with a hollow interior J

On to the confectioner’s custard next! The recipe…

25g butter

25g flour

125ml milk

25g sugar

1 egg yolk

¼ tsp vanilla essence

And here’s the outcome! I’m still unsure if the texture of the custard should be like the one I made. It was a tad lumpy; probably because I did not mix in the flour properly. Otherwise, my brother commented that it was not too sweet and tastes good!

Here’s the final product- my mini cream puffs. I still need to master my execution and of cause, this is to better facilitate my micro teaching later. Keep the comments coming in… Will really appreciate it J