Hi there, and welcome to my big-croque-en-bouche-comeback-challenge! If you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, make sure to take a look at the introduction and part 1! To be honest, I should have posted this some while ago. Everybody must get tired of me saying this, but I’m going to try harder to maintain this blog! Having said that, I’m very pleased to tell you that my pâte à choux (also known as choux pastry) turned out remarkably well! That is to say, it rose the way it was supposed to, I still have a lot of practice to go before I can use a pastry bag the way I’d want to. Fun fact: if you’d make a literal translation of the dutch word for pastry bag, namely “spuitzak” you’d get “squirting bag”. But enough with the kinky talk, lets get cooking!
Ingredients
- 250 ml water or milk (I used milk)
- 150 g flower, sieved
- 100 g buter
- 4-5 eggs
- a pinch of salt
Method
- Preheat your oven to 225°C (which is about 440°F)
- Bring your milk/water to a boil with a pinch of salt and add your butter.
- Leave your pot on your heat source and add all the flower at once, making sure you’re stirring vigorously.
- Using a spatula, keep squishing your dough until seems pretty dry and sticks together as a bal.
- Transfer your dough to a mixing bowl and let it cool down a bit. (crumble it apart to let it cool down more quickly)
- Once your dough has cooled down, beat in the egg one by one. You might not need the 5th egg. You want a dough that’s quite firm, but liquid enough to go through a pastry bag.
- Fill up your pastry bag and start squirting on a baking tray that’s lined out with some baking paper
Don’t forget to check out the slideshow for step by step instructions!
PS: A nerdy update! I’ve decided to start using the wordpress slideshow instead of the flickr one. This is more convenient for me as it needs less work to post, and also, the flickr one uses flash whereas the wordpress slidshow relies on a combination of javascript and css (yes, only nerds understand what I’m talking about). This means that starting with this post, you can visit your favourite food blog using any device (including mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) and still be able to enjoy those marvelous slideshows!
Flavour Journey 
Oh that’s starting to look delicious 😉 I’m sure you can win over any girl’s heart with these! Forget what they say about diamonds, chocolate’s really a girl’s best friend!
Keep up the good work!
xoxo
gossip girl
lol, seriously? “gossip girl” :p
Couldn’t resist! =D
Since I’m kind of a nerd, I understand the geek-lingo ^^ YAY now I can stalk you everywhere!
xxx (i’ll act normal now, sorta =p)
Just a quick tip btw: when you have your dough in the bag and you’re ready to squirt it on the baking tray, instead of making these small towers like pomme duchesse, you can just place the nozzle of the bag slighty slanted on the baking tray and start squeezing, and that way the dough will form a little ball automatically. A tip I picked up a while ago whilst watching Sweet Baby James ^^
Oh btw are you making the croque en bouche with chocolate or caramel on top? ‘Cause I thought that tradionally, it’s made with caramel (I could be wrong ofc!).
xxx
Hannelore
Thanks for the tip! Although I most say I was already putting it into action (my mom used to work in a pastry shop so she helped me out), the problem was that I was being a cheap-ass, when I bought my pastry bag I only bought 1 nozzle, which proved to be too small, which is why I had to make these swirley towers :s It was perfect for filling them up with the pastry cream though!
I want one now .. currently having a massive chocolate crave moment=p
Just thought it might be helpfull though^^
btw im logged in on my account atm so maybe you won’t see ‘Hannelore’ but Sugarsparkk .. which is another of my fail blogs=p but I’m changing it form a lifestyle blog to just a everyday blog so I might be able to keep it up ^^
xx
Ohw yeah about the chocolat/caramel debate: I think both are traditional but from what I’ve seen, most of the time the croques are topped with chocolat and then decorated with caramel. What have I done? Only time (check back tomorrow or saturday) will tell 😉