Secrets of making choux pastry for eclairs

Profiteroles, eclairs, custard rings, gougères... What do all these delicacies have in common? – Choux pastry, French roots and... high calorie content. Profiteroles are custard cakes with cream, very tasty and translated from the original language as “reward”.

It would be wrong to refuse such a pleasure, so we prepare French cakes using “healthy” techniques - healthy profiteroles without flour, with a delicate, low-calorie cream.

On a note! Since we make choux pastry without flour, the set of ingredients is not the most familiar and accessible. But in the current conditions, it is not a problem to find this or that ingredient - be it in the diet departments of stores, special health and medical food stores, or online delivery services.

Ingredients

First, let's prepare the profiteroles. The cream for them can be anything, sweet (then it will be a dessert) or unsweetened (an excellent snack). Today we are preparing dessert.

For the choux pastry you will need:

• water - 260 g;
• eggs - 4 pcs;
• corn starch - 80 g;
• gluten (gluten) - 60 g;
• salt - 1 tsp;
• baking powder (or baking soda) - 1 tsp;
• vanillin – 1 g;
• sweetener - to taste (I have fitparad No. 10 - 3 measuring spoons).

On a note! Gluten, or gluten, is extracted from wheat grains and is essential for binding dough together. In fact, it is a vegetable wheat protein, it contains 70 grams of protein and 18 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams of product. It improves the structure of the dough, makes it soft, airy, increases the shelf life and freshness of baked goods.

On margarine

Choux pastry for profiteroles, the recipe for which includes margarine, turns out to be very tender and melts in your mouth. At the same time, such a flour dough rises very well, leaving enough space inside the cake, which can be filled with filling. The calorie content of the dish is approximately 250 kcal per 100 g serving.

What ingredients will you need?

To create dough for profiteroles with your own hands using margarine, you need to purchase the following food products:

To obtain a large number of cakes, the volume of all necessary ingredients should be doubled. For cooking, it is advisable to use a saucepan with high sides.

Step-by-step cooking process

The detailed process of making dough for profiteroles at home based on margarine is described in the following paragraphs:

1. To mix the ingredients, you need to add margarine with water and table salt, and then put it on the stove. The contents must be heated over low heat until the margarine has melted.
2. Then you should add flour, removing the saucepan from the heat and quickly kneading the dough.
3. When the dough has cooled slightly, beat in the eggs and continue kneading.

When all the components used to create the flour mixture are homogeneous, the product can be used for its intended purpose.

Technology for making profiteroles without flour

We dose all products - before cooking, each ingredient must be ready for use at its moment.

Mix gluten, corn starch, baking powder, vanillin and sugar.

In a separate bowl, boil water and salt on the stove. In the meantime, prepare a mixer, whisk or spoon - a tool that will need to actively stir the brewing dough.

When the water boils, pour the prepared dry mixture into it and immediately begin stirring until the dough is completely cooked. Lumps will form and the mass will become heterogeneous. I mixed the dough with a mixer, but there were still lumps. But it's not scary. The dough brews quickly - within 20-30 seconds.

When the dough has brewed, you need to grind it with a blender. After using a blender (immersion or stationary - it doesn’t matter), the mass will become more uniform.

The dough will still be warm after the blender; you need to add all the eggs to it one at a time. Pour the egg into the dough and beat it with a blender. Pour in the second egg - blender again. And so on for all 4 eggs.

The dough turns out viscous, soft, homogeneous. There will be no trace left of the lumps. Place it on a non-stick mat/mold/baking tray using a pastry bag (or bag). We form the cakes in the form of round cakes. The dough will spread a little, but during baking it will rise and set.

Bake profiteroles for 30 minutes at 180°C. Do not open the oven during baking! There is a risk of the dough falling off.

The finished cakes will rise quite strongly, brown and acquire a dense, stable crust. I left them in the oven to cool for 30 minutes before taking them out.

Result: the profiteroles are fluffy, hollow inside, as desired, a little crispy on the outside, but not hard. They smell like vanilla and France.

I got a large portion - for a family of 4 adults. About 25 cakes. And I also made 1 custard “ring” - for my favorite.

Nutritional value and calorie content of healthy profiteroles without cream (I got 280 grams of this miracle):

1 cake weighs no more than 10 grams, that is, the calorie content of one empty profiterole is 29.2 kcal.

The simplest recipe using water

When properly kneading the flour mixture, the raw material should become thick, elastic and viscous. In this case, the product should not drain from the spatula. It should be spherical in shape. In addition, it is worth considering that the eggs should be added one at a time. Once the flour mixture is completely mixed with the egg, you can add the following.

What ingredients will you need?

To create custard flour for cakes at home, you should purchase the following food products:

• water – 250 ml;
• butter – 100 g;
• wheat flour – 160 g;
• table salt – 6 g;
• eggs – 220 g.

If the eggs are large, then it is best to use 3 eggs, as well as 1 yolk. It is not recommended to beat in all the eggs at once. Otherwise, the dough may come out with a very runny texture.

Step-by-step cooking process

The step-by-step process of making dough for profiteroles with your own hands requires the following points:

1. Add butter and table salt to a thick-bottomed saucepan.
2. Next, the mixture must be placed on medium heat and, stirring occasionally, bring the components to a homogeneous state.
3. After the water and oil boil, you need to reduce the heat and add flour. The contents of the saucepan should be thoroughly mixed, trying to break up all the lumps.
4. Then, after intensively brewing the dough for 3 minutes. The saucepan must be removed from the stove, having cooled its contents to approximately 70 °C.
5. Next, you need to add chicken eggs one by one, thoroughly mixing all the ingredients.

After the mass becomes homogeneous, it should be used for its intended purpose.

Preparing the filling

Be that as it may, custard pies without filling are not very popular. It is the filler that is the “ice” in this culinary masterpiece.

Firstly, the exciting and pleasant aroma of the filling flows through the small hole in the profiterole, secondly - it’s always a mystery - “What’s inside?”, thirdly (the most important) - the filling creates an accent to the dish, provides a bright taste and smell to the pie.

You can use many healthy and healthy products as filling. I will offer their options later, but for now we are preparing 2 delicious creams for profiteroles on a base of soft cottage cheese.

Cream ingredients

I made 2 flavors of cottage cheese filling: strawberry and toffee.

• low-fat soft cottage cheese – 250 g;
• sweetener (fitparad No. 10) – 3 measuring spoons;
• sea ​​salt – 1 small pinch;
• strawberry syrup “Black Sea light” / strawberry puree – 2 tbsp;
• syrup zero by mr. djemius, toffee flavor/low-fat cocoa - 2 tbsp.

Preparation is simple: mix cottage cheese with sakhzam and salt, divide into 2 parts. Add 1 type of syrup to each bowl: strawberries and toffee. Mix.

To fill the profiteroles with cream, you can use a pastry syringe. But I didn’t have one, so I used a medical syringe. We pierce the cake at the base, fill the syringe with cream and “release” it from the syringe through the hole made into the profiterole. Thanks to the large internal voids of the cake, the cream fits inside well and does not leak out.

With vegetable oil

The choux pastry recipe is so versatile that it can be made not only with margarine or butter, but also with regular sunflower oil. As a result, profiteroles are quite tender, dense and elastic.

What ingredients will you need?

When creating custard flour for cakes based on vegetable oil at home, you will need the following food products:

• vegetable oil – 100 ml;
• flour – 300 g;
• table salt – 1 pinch;
• eggs – 220 g.

To knead the dough, it is advisable to use a refined type of oil. It should not have a specific taste or smell. This is necessary so that the oil product does not clog the main taste of the finished product.

Step-by-step cooking process

The detailed process of creating a dough for profiteroles with your own hands based on vegetable oil is described in the following steps:

1. Pour water into a thick-walled pan, adding table salt and sunflower oil.
2. The components must be brought to a boil and then supplemented with flour.
3. After vigorously mixing all the ingredients without removing from heat for 2 minutes, the raw materials should not stick to the walls of the pan.
4. Next, the mass must be cooled for 15 minutes.
5. Continuing to thoroughly mix the workpiece, add 1 chicken egg to the components.

When all the ingredients are brought to homogeneity, the dough piece can be used for culinary purposes.

Recipe for delicious cream for eclairs and profiteroles

The cream according to this recipe is prepared very quickly and always turns out impeccably. True, they do it not on the stove, but in the microwave. This is very convenient; you don’t need to stand and cook the mixture, worrying whether it will burn, whether lumps will form, or whether it will acquire the desired consistency. Just 3 minutes - and the cream is ready!

List of components:

• a glass of milk;
• yolk;
• 1 tbsp. l. flour and vanilla sugar;
• 1.5 tbsp. l. Sahara.

Cooking process:

1. Mix in a suitable container.
2. Turn on the microwave. Set the container with liquid to maximum for 1 minute.
3. Remove and whisk. Do this 2 more times.

If desired, you can add boiled condensed milk or butter to the thick cream.

Choux pastry for eclairs and profiteroles - a classic recipe

The oil must be purified and odorless, otherwise the finished cakes will have a specific aroma. The list of products is minimal:

• vegetable oil – 0.5 tbsp.;
• 1 tbsp. flour and water;
• 4 eggs;
• a little salt.

From this number of components, approximately 2 dozen products are obtained (about 10 cm long). Sequencing:

1. Pour the liquid ingredients into a saucepan and boil.
2. Immediately add the flour, constantly stirring the contents of the saucepan (it is most convenient to do this with a whisk). Remove from heat while still stirring.
3. Cool, add eggs and beat until smooth.
4. Grease baking paper with oil and scoop out lumps of dough using a tablespoon.
5. Bake for about a third of an hour at 200 degrees, then reduce d 150 and bake for another quarter of an hour.

You need to focus on the color of the crust. All products should be well browned. The cooled pieces just need to be filled with cream, put in a cold place and served with tea.