When I was around the age of 12 I first opened a cookery book and discovered the wonderful world of cooking. I am by no means professionally trained; bar a few summers working as an assistant cook at a children’s camp in Canada what I know comes from years of trial and error. I’ve only ever taken cookery lessons twice in my lifetime, and both times they were in Paris, France.
A few weeks ago I was invited to Paris to enjoy and celebrate the bistronomy scene that the city has to offer. As part of our foodie experience, we were treated to a cookery class at L’Atelier des Sens where we learned about all things choux pastry.
Choux pastry is a light and airy pastry used in a wide range of French desserts such as profiteroles, eclairs and chouquettes, among many others. It is also remarkably easy to make.
The airiness of choux pastry occurs because of its high water content. During baking this water evaporates, creating steam, which pushes the pastry shell outwards to give it its volume. The trick to getting a perfectly set pastry is to let some of this steam evaporate with the oven door open so that the pastry becomes crisp and golden instead of soft, resulting in pastry that sinks when cooled.
It’s also important, when making the pastry mixture on the stove top, to ensure that the flour/egg mixture cooks and dries to a suitable consistency. The mixture should be thick and glossy and come away from the sides of the pan, but still be of a soft, droppable consistency.
In our cookery class, we learned just what this ideal consistency looks and feels like, and we made chocolate eclairs, choux pastry swans and some chouquettes with the mixture.
Chouquettes are small biscuits of choux pastry sprinkled with crunchy pearl sugar before being baked and then filled with crème pâtissière or a lighter Diplomat Cream we learned how to make – basically simple whipped cream combined with equal parts of crème pâtissière. They’re incredibly tasty little morsels, I can tell you!
We also learned how to make crème pâtissière properly. I’d only ever attempted to make this delicious custard once before, in a massively failed attempt to make Nigella Lawson’s Boston Cream cake, and I never tried it again until Paris.
I’ve been missing out! Again, this dessert is remarkably easy to make. Simply heat milk and some sugar in a pan with a halved vanilla pod, whisk together some egg yolks, sugar and cornflour and then pour the hot milk mixture onto the egg mixture, return to the heat and stir until thickened. Easy peasy!
Our cookery instructor also showed us how easy it is to make choux pastry swans. He filled them with the Diplomat cream and dusted them with a little bit of icing sugar for a showstopper of a centrepiece. I have plans to make these for my children for some special occasion in the near future.
Next door to our class, another cookery class was running and that group learned how to make a range of cakes and cheesecakes. After both classes had ended we each shared our creations with the other group. It was a rather lovely way to learn about French cooking in an informal setting.
With huge thanks to the city of Paris for inviting me to experience Paris cuisine.
Chocolate Eclairs, Choux Pastry Swans and Crème Pâtissière
Ingredients
For the Choux Pastry
- 100 grams full fat milk
- 100 grams cold water
- 4 grams Shetland sea salt
- 4 grams caster sugar
- 90 grams butter
- 110 grams plain flour sifted
- 4 medium free-range eggs
For the Crème Pâtissière
- 400 grams full fat milk
- 1 vanilla bean pod
- 120 grams caster sugar
- 4 free-range egg yolks
- 40 grams cornflour
- 50 grams butter
For the Fondant Frosting (topping recipe 1)
- 200 grams fondant frosting
- dark chocolate to taste
For the Chocolate Glaze (topping recipe 2)
- 50 grams dark chocolate
- 1 tsp butter
- 1 tbsp water
- 85 grams icing sugar
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Instructions
For the Choux Pastry
- Preheat oven to 200C/400F/ Gas Mark 6-7
- Bring the milk, water, salt and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan. Don't leave it to boil as the water will evaporate.
- Remove the mixture from the heat and add all of the flour in one go. Stir well with a wooden spoon and place the pan back onto the heat.
- Continute to stir while the mixture cooks and the dough drys, coming away from the sides of the pan. It will form a soft dough.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well with a spatula between each addition.
- The dough will become firm, but will still be soft enough to drop off the spoon. If it's too thick add a little hot milk to loosen it up.
- Transfer the pastry mixture to a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch plain nozzle.
- Pipe 4 inch long fingers onto a lightly greased baking tray, leaving room for them to spread.
- Sprinkle the tray with a few drops of water and bake for 15 minutes, leaving the door closed. Then, open the door slightly and bake for a further 10 minutes or so until the pastry is crisp and golden-brown.
- Remove the pastry from the oven and, using a small toothpick, carefully poke a small hole in the side of each pastry to let the steam escape. Bake for a further 5 minutes. Remove from the tray and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
For the Crème Pâtissière
- Split the vanilla pod down the side and place a saucepan along with the milk and 1/3 of the sugar. Bring to a boil.
- Whisk the remaining sugar with the egg yolks in a bowl. Add the cornstarch and whisk well until combined.
- Remove the vanilla pod from the milk, reserving the seeds.
- Pour a little of the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture and whisk until combined.
- Add the remaining milk and return the pan to the heat, whisking continually until the custard mixture thickens.
- Transfer the thickened mixture to a bowl and add the butter. Stir well until combined. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until needed.
For the Fondant Frosting
- Let the fondant melt in a bain-marie. Add dark chocolate, as desired.
For the Chocolate Frosting
- Break the chocolate and place in a heat proof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water along with the butter and water. Leave to melt and then stir in the icing sugar.
To Assemble
- Slice the eclairs lengthwise and pipe them full with crème pâtissière. Top with the chocolate frosting of your choice.
To make Swans
- Pipe shorter lines of choux pastry as well as large number two shapes for the swan neck.
- To assemble, cut the pastry top off and halve to form two wings. Arrange the neck with the base of the number two hidden down the length of the body. Fill with piped Diplomat Cream, equal portions of plain whipped cream mixed with cooled crème pâtissière. Arrange the wings on top of the cream and dust lightly with icing sugar.
OTHER RECIPES USING CHOUX PASTRY
Ice Cream Puffs (Profiteroles)
Choux Cygnets
Belgian Chocolate Choux Buns with Vanilla Pastry Cream
Mont Blanc Profiteroles
Spring Lemon Eclairs
Strawberry Choux Buns
MORE PARIS POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE
Parisian Bistronomy: Eating My Way Through the City of Lights
Duck Breast with Fig Sauce – La Cuisine Paris
Coffee in Paris
My Geocaching Adventures in Paris
Grilled Scottish Salmon with Creamy Polenta, Pistachios & Tomato Butter
FURTHER INFORMATION
L’Atelier des Sens Cookery Classes
ParisInfo.com
With thanks to the Paris Convention & Visitors Bureau for inviting me to Paris to experience French cuisine. All thoughts and opinions expressed are our own.
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Def just pinned this! I love Paris so I love reading anything in relation to their culture.
I’ve always been fascinated with the different pastries you can create. My uncle loved eclairs.
The swan eclairs looks both yummy and elegant. I think I’ll have a hard tie eating it because it looks so pretty.
Oh wooww! It looks amazing. I never got the hang of baking and cooking but posts like these makes me wanna try it.
The eclairs looks so cute. I love that they are swans and wow for Paris! Yeah! A lovely post and something new I’ve never tried making before!
Wow what an incredible experience. You’re very lucky. An eclair is one of my fave sweet treats x
What a fun way to learn and enjoy pastries and food that I personally love! I am seeing that cinnamon roll and I am drooling lol
These look absolutely amazing! I wish I was a good enough baker to make something as intricate as this 🙂
Louise x
I love making (and eating) choux pastry! I never manage to make anything pretty and delicate like these swans though!
It’s such a fun thing to do. I think that my kids would love to bake and have fun at the same time as they often past the play dough to me and ask me to make a gingerbread man.
I’ve always been told that choux pastry is the hardest to make! I still think it might be! Wow, a trip to paris, lucky you, sounds amazing. Gorgeous pics. You just make me want to go and eat buns now : )
OMG those look ah-mayyyyyy-zing!!! Taking a cooking class with my hubby is high on my bucket list!
That looks fab, i am useless with pastry so mine would probably end up looking like a drunk duck!!
Eclairs! I have a weakness for eclairs. I think it’s awesome that you got to attend a cooking class like this! You made so many lovely desserts! YUM!
Those do look good. Although I am not a big fan of the pastry cream. I have devised my only little filling for when I am stuffing the eclairs. My own personal variant on it all.
That would be a dream come true to be invited to a cooking class .. in Paris(!) Way to go .. and the pastry swans are the cutest. Yum!
Has anyone scientifically proven that pretty food just taste better yet? Because it does, now I’m hungry.
Mon Ndio (OK thats me being in awe in french) How lucky yo got ibvited to such a fun and creative event. My sweet tooth demands that I try one of these soonest. I´´ll start with the Crème Pâtissière´s. Thanks for sharing.
How lucky are you to get to experience french pastry making in Paris! Those look so delicious and I definitely want to try it myself. But I’m sure the best part was the eating 🙂
Oh my goodness, what a wonderful experience. This was recipes look delicious. I’ll have to give them a try.
What an incredible expierience! I wish I could join in with most and say that I love to bake, but I must saddly admit that I am a terrible cook in any aspect! I once made Baking Soda Chicken. I kid you not. I would have been removed from the classes!
These swans look great. So does all the other cakes. Sound like a great event 🙂
Wow, this looks like a fantastic thing to do. It’s also making me hungry!
What an amazing experience! I think every pastry chef’s dream is to be able to learn in France 🙂
There is so much more to baking than people even realize. I believe that it’s a total art.
They look amazing! I love cooking especially I love to bake and I been dying to get that recipe or the creme!!
can’t wait to try it!!
Oh my goodness, this looks so yummy!! I’m going to have to try it!
These look amazing, what a fun class! Thanks for the recipe!
What a fantastic experience the choux pastry swans are a real showstopper!
Ohh this is so cute. Indeed baking needs a lot of creativeness as well. I would want to learn more about baking. Maybe I need to learn more about this. Will be saving the recipe for my reference when I finally had time to do some baking.
They look amazing! I love cooking and chox pastry and creme patisserie is something I’ve always wanted to try. Thank you for a brilliantly informative post will definitely be trying these!
What an amazing experience! I would love to attend a class like this! I am so bad at baking! It all looks so delicious! xx corinne
Wow! What an incredible experience. They look really impressive – perfect for a party 🙂
My girls would love to make this! I know it will be super fun and delicious!
Wow this looks awesome. Also it sounds like a dream. That is such a pretty swan and looked like a fun activity.
This looks like it was a fun class to take. I am always looking to improve my skills. This looks so delicious. I will have to give these recipes a try.
What a dream to have been invited to Paris to attend the cookery class and you have done a grand job! I love the sound of the pastry swans yum x