• As part of our partnership with Pastry Chef Robert Eisler, we present you a new recipe: "Choux with cocoa and praline". This creation is not only an exquisite dessert, but also an opportunity to explore and customize, starting from a simple base, as the talented Pastry Chef. And the crispy craquelin dough, combined with the fine cocoa cream and almond and hazelnut praline, promises a real delight for the senses.
"I really like recipes that can be used as a 'base' that you can easily modify to get more varieties, and choux are the perfect example." tells us Pastry Chef Robert Eisler.
"It's simple to change the cream you fill them with and you've already got another product. But besides that, the way of making the dough (with cocoa or without), the fact that they can be covered or not with craquelin (of various colors), the variety of decorations, makes them very easy to diversify. So, please take this recipe as a base from which to build your favorite choux!”
The ingredients of the recipe are:
• It took cracker
• It took pâte au choux
• Boiled cream of cocoa
• Almond and hazelnut praline
Who is cracker:
60 g – Butter
80 g – Sugar
80 g – Flour
OBS: For cracker of cocoa, replace 5g of flour with 5g cocoa. Alternatively, the dough can be colored using food coloring.
Lightly mix the butter and sugar together using the paddle attachment of a mixer planetary mixer. Add the flour and mix on low speed until smooth.
Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper, 1-2 mm thick, and put it in the fridge until it hardens, after which cut out circles with a diameter of 5 cm.
Who is pâte au choux:
100 g – Water
100 g – Milk
100 g – Butter
2 g – Salt
10 g – Sugar
133 g – Flour
200 g – Egg
OBS: For pâte au choux of cocoa, replace 10g of flour with 10g of cocoa.
Heat the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a double-bottomed pot until it boils.
CAREFUL: Make sure the butter is completely melted before the mixture starts to boil!
At the first boil, take the pot off the heat and add the entire amount of flour at once, mixing with a spatulate or with a wooden spoon until homogeneous (until there are no dry parts in the dough).
The pot is put back on the fire and the composition is mixed in such a way that the spatula used does not touch the bottom of the pot, the place where a lump of dough will form (we try not to insert pieces of the formed lump into the dough in order not to favor the cracking of the product during baking ).
The composition is kept on fire, stirring continuously, until it reaches temperature of ~75⁰C (or until the mold forms on the entire base of the pot).
The dough is transferred to the bowl of a planetary mixer and, using the paddle attachment, it is mixed on low speed until the mixture reaches ~40⁰C, at which point the eggs, which were previously homogenized, are gradually added. For optimal results, a vertical blender can be used when homogenizing the eggs. The obtained dough must be relatively soft, shiny and elastic and must be left covered with food foil in contact, at least 2 hours before it is used.
OBS: The dough can be put in the fridge for a few hours if we want a firmer consistency when baking.
For the cocoa cream:
300 g – Milk
120 g – Sugar
20 g – Starch
20 g – Cocoa
5 pcs – Egg Yolk
150 g – Butter
Heat the milk until the rest of the ingredients are prepared, more precisely mix the sugar, starch and cocoa. Pour very small amounts of milk over them, mixing with a tel, so as to obtain a rather thick paste at first which will be diluted slightly, gently by adding the milk. This process guarantees that we will not have cocoa lumps left in the cream at the end. Add the egg yolks and return the mixture to the pot over medium heat, stirring constantly until a thick and glossy cream is obtained.
Remove the pot from the heat and fold the cold butter into the cream using the whisk, then transfer the cream to a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to cool before use.
For the praline:
50 g – Almonds
50 g – Hazelnuts
100 g – Sugar
OBS: for the praline you can use any type of nuts, according to your preference, the proportion of nuts and sugar being always the same: 1:1.
Bake the nuts for a short time in the oven, about 10 minutes at 150⁰C, to have a stronger flavor. Melt the sugar in a pot, then take it out on a surface Silicone or baking paper and leave to cool. Place the walnuts and sugar in a food processor or blender and process until they turn into a thick paste.
NOTE: The more the praline is processed, the smoother and more fluid it will be, but will add less texture to the product in which it is used.
Baking:
For baking, I recommend using mats made of microperforated silicone, possibly placed on perforated oven trays. They let the air under the product out, providing a good shape cabbagefixes may.
Form half-spheres with a base of about 4 cm, using a round dui bag, toothless. Place a disc of cracker and bake at 165⁰C with fan or 180⁰C without fan, about 45 minutes.
OBS: – Because we use the top cracker plague cabbage-s, baking in ventilated ovens is suitable without risking cracking of the products.
CAREFUL: Do not open the oven door before the products are fully baked!
Assembly:
Immediately after removing from the oven, cabbage- should be pricked with a skewer to allow the vapors formed inside to escape. Otherwise, they will condense and we will have a cabbage with a soft, moist crust.
A hole is formed in the middle cabbage(either at the top or at the bottom) and using a bag fill it cabbage90% with cocoa cream. Using another pouch, inject the praline to fill the rest of the cabbage. Especially if you made the filling on top, cabbage- can be decorated with either chopped almonds/hazelnuts or even a cocoa cream hazelnut.
Desserts based on pâte au choux they are filled and consumed the same day they were baked, to preserve the texture and freshness of the product.
Read HERE in White Art and other delicious dessert recipes.
