French Chouquette Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is Chouquette made of? ›

The making of Chouquettes is in essence the making of a choux pastry – known in French as “Pâte à Choux”. The soft pastry dough is then piped into little mounds on a baking sheet and topped with pearl sugar before baking, to create chouquettes. Basic ingredients for a Pâte à Choux include butter, water, flour and eggs.

If you've used too many eggs in your pastry dough, water in the egg yolk will start to separate from the yolk. Once the pastry is baking in the oven, this water then evaporates, causing the structure of the pastry to tighten up and shrink. The dough is too thick to pipe.

First, the dough is too wet and runny. The dough needs enough flour to give it structure to properly rise and hollow out. The solution is to use enough flour so that the dough is thick enough. Second, your cream puffs or choux pastries may not hollow out because the baking temperature is too low to start.

The essential ingredients are butter, water, flour and eggs. Instead of a raising agent, choux pastry employs its high moisture content to create steam, as the water in the dough evaporates when baked, puffing the pastry.

Shelf-life & Refeshing your Choux

You can keep the Choux in an airtight container for up to 3 days. They will feel soggy when you take them out so it's important to put them in a 175°C oven for about 5 minutes. That will dry and crisp them back up. ..But I suggest to use,the same day you make them, so much better.

Translated to English, chouquettes mean “little bits of (choux) pastry,” which is exactly what they are. The dough used to make these pastry puffs is the same dough that's used to make eclairs and profiteroles.

Simply made of choux pastry made of water (or milk), butter, wheat flour, eggs and salt, the chouquette, short for cabbage with the suffix "ette", was created in the 16th century by the Italian pastry chef Popelini who, while working at the court of Queen Catherine de Medici, imported it to France.

Chouquettes (pronounced shoo-kets) are French pastry sugar puffs and can also be made into profiteroles (French cream puffs) if you're feeling fancy. It's that magic pâte à choux dough recipe again, the very same one used to make savory Gougères.

Too much eggs will cause a runny dough, which will result flat pastry shells.

The most important stages in making a choux batter are measuring, forming, and cooking the paste, and then beating in the eggs. Get those parts right, and you'll be golden, just like your choux.

Why didn't my eclairs rise? ›

Chances are the dough was too wet and runny. When you pipe out the batter, it probably didn't hold its shape (see the picture above – the runny batter kind of spreads out). That means it has too little flour, or too much liquid in the form of water, eggs and/or butter.

Finally, it is important to not overmix the dough after the eggs are added. Overmixing can make the dough tough.

If too much egg is added or if it is added too quickly, the Choux's ability to rise when baked will be affected. Similarly, if not enough egg is incorporated, it won't puff, causing it to be dense inside.

Answer: This can happen if your choux pastry wasn't thick enough, and too runny. It's important to make sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next one. It is also important not to open your oven and peak. This releases steam and can result in a soggy and flat éclair.

General rules

Mix together the flour and salt by sieving. Keep everything as cool as possible otherwise the fat may melt which would spoil the finished dish. Introduce as much air as possible during making.

If too much egg is added or if it is added too quickly, the Choux's ability to rise when baked will be affected. Similarly, if not enough egg is incorporated, it won't puff, causing it to be dense inside.

Too much moisture causes the choux pastry to sink. The other important reason is your oven was not preheated enough. The oven must be very hot the moment you put your choux pastry dough in to bake. The last reason your pastry collapsed is because you baked with uneven heat.