Pate a choux revisited

[Chouquette]

They are all my eclairs. I’ve spent many hours perfecting them.
The Kica class was excellent in many ways. I had no success with their dough, unfortunately. Its got a ton of egg and I could not get rid of the cracking that occurred regardless of my baking technique: 350F for the whole bake; start at 500F or 475F shut off heat, after 20 minutes turn oven to 320F; start at 475 for 10 minutes, turn down heat to 350F. Nothing worked with that dough. A lot of European chefs Joachim Pratt, Kica Academy, Karim Bourgi add enough eggs to achieve the ribbon stage with the panade. For me, that’s way too much hydration even for bread flour, which none of them use. I’ve yet to find a European chef who advocates bread flour. It’s seems to be an American thing, with the exception of Francisco MagGoya who uses cake flour. Oh yes, I’ve been down the pate à choux rabbit hole!

Now I use a moderate gluten AP flour, a moderate oven for the whole bake, 82% butter, cook the panade to 165F and add enough egg so it drops slowly from the paddle in a V shape that’s translucent on the edges And slowly closes when I run a wet finger through it, ending in a bird beak when I pull up. The shell is crisp, hollow and well rounded.

For info about the Kica course, contact me a my business address, (e-mail address removed).

 

[Cahoot]

They are all my eclairs. I’ve spent many hours perfecting them.
The Kica class was excellent in many ways. I had no success with their dough, unfortunately. Its got a ton of egg and I could not get rid of the cracking that occurred regardless of my baking technique: 350F for the whole bake; start at 500F or 475F shut off heat, after 20 minutes turn oven to 320F; start at 475 for 10 minutes, turn down heat to 350F. Nothing worked with that dough. A lot of European chefs Joachim Pratt, Kica Academy, Karim Bourgi add enough eggs to achieve the ribbon stage with the panade. For me, that’s way too much hydration even for bread flour, which none of them use. I’ve yet to find a European chef who advocates bread flour. It’s seems to be an American thing, with the exception of Francisco MagGoya who uses cake flour. Oh yes, I’ve been down the pate à choux rabbit hole!

Now I use a moderate gluten AP flour, a moderate oven for the whole bake, 82% butter, cook the panade to 165F and add enough egg so it drops slowly from the paddle in a V shape that’s translucent on the edges And slowly closes when I run a wet finger through it, ending in a bird beak when I pull up. The shell is crisp, hollow and well rounded.

For info about the Kica course, contact me a my business address, (e-mail address removed).

Haha I see you've indeed been down that rabbit hole too. Have you seen the Canal Berlin eclairs? I believe their owner/pastry chef, Dana Canal, actually took a Joakim Pratt masterclass on pâte à choux before, but now her eclairs are the best I've seen anywhere.

I've also had similar findings for eclair shells myself; I use a bit lower protein flour though (basically pastry flour), but also found cooking the panade to 167-176°F (75-80°C) and baking at a constant 325°F to be the best with my recipe.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Haven't checked this forum in a while, but I agree with all the points you made @Chouquette. I always bake on a perforated silicone mat on a perforated baking sheet now, and rest my pate a choux before using. I tested resting 1 hour vs. 3 hours and found that 3 hours did have a slight improvement over 1 hour, but there while there wasn't any noticeable improvement in resting 1 day vs. ~3 hours, I often make my pate a choux the day before just for time management's sake.

I also find runnier batters easier to pipe, up to a certain degree, so I actually keep my pate a choux somewhere slightly warmer than room temp before using it too. When I look at making-of videos of the nicest looking eclair shells I've seen on social media, they always have a much runnier batter than mine, even though I think my formula has a fairly high liquids and eggs ratio already.

I don't have any recent pictures of my naked eclair shells, but have a couple of some eclairs I made more recently. These aren't actually the best shells I've made - I made a small adjustment to my formula (bumping the eggs up slightly) since taking these pictures and my shells since have turned out smoother, larger, and slightly more hollow.

Is the chocolate-based glaze you used @Chouquette the Christophe Adam recipe? That's what I used for the apricot ones I posted (orange-coloured), and for the caramel ones I used another Christophe Adam recipe that's essentially a caramel mixed with fondant. For this one, I piped the glaze on using a large flat tip, which I"ve found is much faster and easier to make a neat glaze than dipping. Unfortunately, the 3cm-wide tip I have is slightly smaller than ideal for the size of eclair shells I make.

@Norcalbaker59 Remember we used to have a conversation about where to get a pastry tip like the one I mentioned above? I ended up placing an order from France for a bunch of pastry equipment that either wasn't available or outrageously expensive here in North America (spent €150 before currency conversion to CAD, shipping, and customs! I think I ended up paying almost $350CAD in total by the end of it), and got this tip as part of it.

Edit: I also wanna mention that I tested out using different types of coatings for the eclair shells before baking:
1) Non-stick spray + powdered sugar
2) Non-stick spray + dextrose
3) Mycryo + dextrose

I found that both combinations with dextrose browned the shells way too much for my formula, and they ended up slightly burnt before getting fully cooked. Otherwise there was no noticeable different in the shape of the shells (including the test with Mycryo); it was just the colour difference. I haven't tested Mycryo + powdered sugar, but honestly since non-stick spray works fine I'm happy to stick with it since it is much less expensive than using Mycryo.

honestly your eclairs look great. You should see what some of the eclairs look like at some of the bakeries—yours are better.

Choux takes a lot of practice. It’s one of those things that is more about perfecting technique then anything else. And that technique comes down to your ingredients and equipment.

 

[Joanne]

Hi there could you please help me with donut dough please, I read a port but can’t find it now and just having trouble with misshapen and shrunk donuts also can’t work out the speeds on the roller of the machine we use

 

[Dasher]

The speed depends on the make and model such as Moline. If you’re using a sheeted moulder machine and it’s misshaped then your tension may be too tight on the rolling pin