Basic Choux Pastry

Choux pastry (pâte à choux) is a cooked mixture of fat, flour and water or milk with maybe some sugar and salt into which eggs are beaten. Cooked choux pastry is light, crisp on the outside, airy and moist on the inside. This is an excellent basic choux pastry which works every time and is especially good for small pastry shells.

Ingredients

150 g water

75 g butter

90 g plain flour

3 eggs (150g)

Method

Preheat oven to 200ºC. Place water and butter in a cooking pot over medium heat and bring to the boil. Stir in the flour and keep cooking and blending until the choux leaves the side of the pot. Add eggs one by one and mixing between additions ending with a smooth and shiny paste. Pipe choux paste onto lightly greased baking trays and bake in the oven for approx. 20 minutes.

Note: Choux pastry can be made into lots of different shapes and flavoured with herbs and spices. Choux pastry shapes can be frozen and cooked, defrosted when needed. They can also be place wrapped in the freezer after they are cooked. Place the frozen cooked pastry shells on a tray and defrost before use. If they are a bit soft, place them in an oven at 180ºC for approx. 3 minutes.