Recipe - Basic Pate A Choux

1 cup Water or milk
One half cup Butter (4 tablespoons)
One half teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Sugar if making a sweet
pastry
1 cup Flour
4 Eggs (1 cup)

Place liquid, butter, salt and sugar, if using, in a medium saucepan and
bring slowly to a simmer. Turn off heat and add the flour all at once. Stir
vigorously with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball. Return to medium heat
to dry the paste so it will have the maximum puffing ability: turn the ball
around in the pan, pressing it against the sides and flipping it over,
until butter starts oozing out and the paste no longer sticks to your
fingers. Remove from heat and let cool a bit. Turn the paste into a medium
bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle and beat in the
eggs, one at a time, with a wooden spoon or the paddle. Each time you add
an egg, the mixture will become slippery and messy but will then come
together, at which point you can add the next egg. Load mixture into pastry
bag with a round tip (One half or 1inch depending on size puff desired) and
pipe out as required. It will give the fullest puff if used right away but
can be held for several hours. Basic proportions for Pate a Choux are
1:1:1:1/2, or 1 cup liquid, 1 cup flour:1 cup egg:One half cup butter. Water
makes choux more crisp, milk makes them more tender, Puffs expand when
cooked as water in batter turns to steam and explodes the dough. Pate a
choux is an extremely versatile pastry that can be the base of many sweet
and savory dishes. It can take many forms: be poached as gnocchi, baked to
form hollow puffy balls that can be filled with various things, or fried as
fritters and sprinkled with sugar. It is neutral in flavor so is adaptable
to any cuisine. Copyright, 1996, TV FOOD NETWORK, G.P., All Rights Reserved
10/23/96 SHOW
Recipe By : TOO HOT TAMALES SHOW #TH6299

Posted to MCRecipe Digest V1 #275

Date: Sun, 03 Nov 1996 09:27:02 0600

From: Pat Asher asher@mcs.com