Techniques › Baking and pastry
Choux pastry
Intermediate Baking and pastry
Choux pastry is a cooked paste of water, butter, flour and eggs that puffs into hollow shells for cream puffs, eclairs and gougeres.
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How do you do it?
- Bring water, butter and a pinch of salt to a full boil, dump in the flour all at once, and stir hard.
- Cook and stir 1 to 2 minutes until it forms a ball and leaves a thin film on the pan.
- Cool 3 to 5 minutes, then beat in eggs one at a time until the paste is glossy and falls from the spoon in a thick V-shaped ribbon.
- Pipe and bake at about 400°F, then lower to about 350°F until deep golden and dry, 30 to 40 minutes total. Don't open the oven early.
- Poke a small hole in each to let steam out so they stay crisp.
Why does it work?
Cooking the flour in boiling water gelatinizes its starch into a smooth, stretchy paste, and eggs add proteins and more water. In the oven, the water flashes to steam and inflates the paste like a balloon, and the egg proteins and starch set into a crisp shell around the hollow. Pull them early and the walls are still soft, so they collapse.
What are the common mistakes?
- Adding all the eggs at once — a runny paste that spreads instead of puffing.
- Opening the oven during the first 20 minutes — they deflate and don't recover.
- Pulling them while still pale — soft walls that sink as they cool.
Still stuck? Watch someone do it on YouTube.
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