Choux Pastry

Choux pastry is so fabulously easy to make and impressively showy for the amount of effort required!

(makes about 40 choux)

3oz/75g butter

280ml water

1tsp salt (cut down to 0.5tsp for sweet choux)

1tsp sugar (omit for savoury choux)

4oz/100g strong white bread flour

4 eggs

Cut the butter into cubes and place in a pan with the water, salt and sugar.  Bring to the boil and remove from the heat.

Add the flour all in one go and beat until combined.  Place the pan back over a medium heat and continue beating for one minute.

Remove the pan from the heat and dip the base briefly in cold water.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between until you have a thick glossy batter.

Place the batter in a piping bag with a 1/1.5cm ish nozzle.  If you don't have a nozzle just cut a hole in the corner of a sturdy sandwich bag, or alternatively you can plop blobs of batter on a tray with a teaspoon.

Pipe/dollop little blobs of batter about 2.5cm wide (or pipe lines if you are making eclairs) onto a lightly greased tray or silicone sheet.

Brush the tops very gently with beaten egg, making sure not to dribble egg down the sides and onto the tray as this will prevent the buns rising, place in a preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes until puffed up, golden brown and crisp.

Remove from the oven, cut a cross in the base and push one quarter of the cross in to make a small hole.  Place them back on the tray and bake for 5 minutes at gas mark 3/160C.

Store in an airtight box but use them as soon as possible.  You can also freeze them; place in an airtight box in the freezer, defrost them at room temperature and give them 2 minutes at 200C to re-crisp them if necessary.

Fill the choux with whipped cream, creme patissiere, soft cheese etc, make sure the fillings aren't too liquidy as it will make the choux go soft very quickly.