Chouquettes

Prep Time: 0:45

Cook Time: 0:30

Serves: 4

Ingredients / Shopping List

125ml water
125ml milk
100g butter
Pinch of salt
150g plain white flour
4 eggs
2 tsp icing sugar
150g Sucre en grains or
150g flaked almonds

Prep to Cook: Mixing bowl, hand held mixer, spatula, wooden spoon, measuring jug, tablespoon, non stick paper, basin, whisk, flat baking tray, cooling rack
Oven 190°C or Gas Mark 5

Prep:

Measure the water and milk into a saucepan. Dice the butter and add to the liquid in the pan with the salt and the icing sugar. Bring to nearly boiling and shoot in the flour. Whisk with a hand-held whisk until a smooth thick paste is formed. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the 4 eggs. Gradually add the egg to the thick paste and beat in.

When the paste is smooth and not too runny stop the egg additions.

Pile the paste into a piping bag.

Pipe small balls of dough, about the size of large grapes, onto the lined baking tray.

Sprinkle with the ‘sucre en grains’ or pearl sugar.

Cook for 20 minutes until really risen and crisp.

Put on the cooling rack to cool.

Check it out!

Chouquettes are popular in France as a tasty snack to eat mid morning. They are lower in calories that profiteroles because they are served without filling.

Recipe Science

Cooks Know How: This recipe is very similar to choux pastry. It is sweetened very slightly with the icing sugar. This also means that the chouquettes turn a rich golden colour in the oven as the sugar caramelises and the ‘maillard reaction’ between the proteins and sugar takes place.

The aeration is due to the egg foam created during the beating of the paste. During cooking in the oven the egg proteins stretch as the liquid ingredients turn to steam. The gluten in the flour paste will also stretch to trap the vapour. The end result is a marvellous irregular, puffy structure with hollow middle and crispy shell. Undercooking will not set the gluten or the egg proteins sufficiently and the puff balls will collapse as they cool. So, slight overcooking is preferable, turning down the oven if needed for a further 5 minute ‘drying off’ time to ensure the chouquettes are crispy and light.