Chouquettes and First Steps!

First, I must ask that you take 8 seconds out of your life and watch this video :)

My last baby’s first steps! Doesn’t a Faerie get her wings or something? Oh, that’s for the first laugh? Well, maybe a faerie gets a new dress or something.



So, it’s a dark, dreary, rainy day here in Maine. (So imagine how pretty those would look with a little sunlight shining on them, mmm-kay?)  I love it. I like rainy days, just so long as there isn’t too many of them strung together. They give you an excuse to stay in your jammies all day. Or watch movies all day. Or bake all day. Or all three! Stay in your jammies, watch movies and bake all day! That’s what we’ve been doing! I was going to make a cookie recipe my grandma sent me, but then I caught up on Baking Bites. And these caught my eye. But  I didn’t have pearl sugar, so I used my crystallized sugar. YUM! The first batch had some learning curve to it, but the kids and I ate it in about 2.7 minutes anyway. So I decided to make a second batch. Yummy yum yum.

Seriously, why am I not making choux pastry more often? It really is easy and I’ve been making it for years! I just forget about it. Well, not anymore! By the way, Nicole’s recipe calls for you to use your mixer when adding the eggs. BRILLIANT. Truly, beating those eggs in by hand was probably what’s been keeping me from cream puffs and eclairs all these years. Anyway, these little babies are going to be on the breakfast menu the next time we have houseguests. They only take a few minutes to whip up and they’re so pretty and sparkly and yummy! And they have eggs. And eggs are a breakfast food. So I can serve these for breakfast. So there!

This is Nicole’s recipe, but doubled. Unless you’re making them for just yourself, you’re going to want to double it.

Chouquettes

Adapted from Baking Bites

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

7 tablespoons butter

3 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt (I used Kosher)

1 1/2 cups flour

4 eggs

1/2 cup crystallized sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium pan, stir together the milk, water, butter, sugar, and salt over medium heat.

Add the flour and stir until the dough comes together in a ball. Continue cooking another minute. 

Remove dough to your mixer’s bowl.

Using the paddle attachment, stir the dough for a minute to let it cool a bit.

Add the eggs, one at a time on medium speed, incorporating fully before adding the next.

Turn the speed up to medium high and beat until the batter becomes smooth and shiny.

Drop by the tablespoonful onto the parchment.

Here's where my method differed from hers (because I wasn’t using pearl sugar): Roll each lump of dough into a ball and dip HALF of it into the crystallized sugar. If you do more than half, the extra sugar will run down to the bottom of the pastry and BURN leaving you will a perfectly cooked pastry with a nasty burned bottom. Not cool. Learn from my mistake.

Place sugary dough ball dough side down back on the parchment. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Bake for 18-25 minutes. (My first batch was done at 18, my last batch took 25. Just keep an eye on them, you’re aiming for golden brown)

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I’m being summoned to watch Sleeping Beauty.