Summer choux tower

 

 

 

As you probably know, choux pastry is my number one patisserie. It is “croquant” , sweet and salty, light and just melts in the mouth. I know often people tell me they are scared to make choux pastry, but with my tips, I guarantee you will succeed!

I say this all the time, but before you intend any new recipe, DO read the recipe in full and follow it! If it says keep in the fridge for 15 minutes, then please do so 🙂 There is something magical in seeing your choux puffing in the oven, and I’d love for you all to experience this too!

I have written a very detailed recipe, sharing with you all of my tips. I hope it will help you to be successful too. Baking is about trial and error. You need to find your way and also enhance your dexterity with your tools. Things like piping, or icing don’t come with magic. You have to teach your hands how to do it. 

But don’t be defeated ! You’ll improve every time and that is the key to any success! 

 

Summer Choux Tower

Quantity: For a 25 choux

Utensils: a piping bag, a nozzle, an electric mixer, 2 baking trays

Difficulty

Ingredients

For the Choux

• 150g of water
• 120g of flour
• 80g of salted butter
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp of sugar

For the filling

• Italian Meringue buttercream

Extras and decorations

• 1 egg white + 1 egg yolk
• 250g of icing sugar
• 100g of blackberries
• petals

Method

1* Make the Choux: In a pan, heat up the water,  the butter and the sugar, and place on medium heat until the butter melts. Remove from the heat, then add the flour all on one go, mix with a spatula until it create a sort of a ball of dough. Leave the dough to steam for 10 min.

Transfer that dough onto an electric mixer bowl, and whisk it for 30 seconds. Then whilst still mixing, add the eggs one by one. Transfer this pasty looking dough onto a piping bag, with a star nozzle ( or a round nozzle).

2* Pipe the choux: Prepare 2 baking trays with some reusable baking sheets, or grease proof paper.  Pipe a small 2/3 cm blop, and use some scissors to help you cut the paste when you lift up your piping bag. Pipe all the choux at 2cm distances, and place in the fridge for 10 min. 

3* In the meantime, pre heat the oven at 200C ( fan oven).  After the 10 minutes in the fridge, take the choux out, and brush them with the extra egg yolk, using a pastry brush ( This will give them a nice colour when baking). 

4* Reduce the oven to 180C ( fan oven) and cook for 18 minutes ( do not open the oven door!). Once cooked, turn off the oven, and let the choux to dry for another 10 to 15 minutes. Here, you can open the oven door to let some remaining steam out of the oven.

5* Make you Italian Meringue buttercream – You could also fill them with whipped cream, pastry cream etc etc – Follow the recipe here. 

6* Once the choux are nice and dry, take them out of the oven and cool on a cooling rack. Use some scissors to make a hole at the bottom of each of them. Then gently fill with the Italian meringue buttercream ( or any filling) using a piping bag with a round nozzle. You can then also add half of a blackberry inside the choux. 

7* Make the royal icing. Mix your additional egg white with the icing sugar in a bowl. It should be a little bit liquid but not too much. If too liquid, don’t hesitate to add more icing sugar. Dip a third of the filled choux into the white royal icing, and leave to dry on the cooling rack.

Crush half of a blackberry to add some colour ( you might want to add more icing sugar here too, to keep the consistency) and continue to dip the choux. Finally, add some more blackberries, for the coulour to get even more intense, and finish to dip all of the rest of the choux. 

8* Choose the biggest choux to sit at the bottom of the tower, and gently arrange them to form a tower. Decorate with extra blackberries and petals.