If the custard dough is thick. Why don't eclairs rise?

Choux pastry makes a lot of delicious dishes - profiteroles, choux buns, French Chou cakes, and of course everyone's favorite classic eclairs. But not everyone gets this dough to the desired consistency, and if one was achieved, it does not guarantee that the product will rise to the desired height during baking and become soft without losing shape.

At first glance, the choux pastry recipe does not contain anything supernatural: 4 eggs, 150 g flour, 100 g butter, 240 g water or milk.

The cooking technology in general looks like this. Add butter to hot salted water, bring to a boil, add flour with vigorous stirring. Let cool, then add the eggs one at a time. From the finished dough, we form products of the desired shape on a baking sheet and bake until cooked. So what's the catch? Let's break down the secrets.

Secret 1. Don't save time in the first step

The first step in making choux pastry is to boil butter with water or milk and salt. And already at this stage, many make the main mistake. Which one? They are in too much of a hurry. Boil the mixture until the oil stops floating on the surface of the water. Otherwise, it will interfere badly with the dough, and your cakes simply will not rise.

Secret 2. Be sure to sift the flour

Otherwise, the dough may turn out to be heterogeneous, and the finished eclairs - uneven.

Secret 3. Flour should get into the “tea tea” all at once

This is one of the stages that require skill and experience. After all, if you try to tip a whole cup of flour into a saucepan, then there is a high probability that half will crumble onto the stove. To prevent this from happening, there is one simple trick: sift the flour onto a sheet of baking paper and, lifting the edges of the sheet, pour the flour into a saucepan with boiling water and oil in a neat stream for just a couple of seconds. You can do this with four hands.

Secret 4. Choux pastry must not only be kneaded properly, but also kneaded

Yes, yes, everyone knows that after flour gets into the saucepan, you should immediately grab a spoon and begin to vigorously stir the mixture until it turns into a homogeneous ball of dough that will easily peel off the walls of the saucepan. But if you want to get not just eclairs, but excellent eclairs, be sure to knead the dough with the back of a spoon for two or three minutes.

Secret 5. The dough must cool

Another point that often leads to irreparable consequences is that the dough is not allowed to cool properly before adding the eggs. As a result, the protein is partially curtailed, and eclairs are not obtained. So, ideally, the dough should cool to 60 degrees. Of course, this does not mean that everyone who wants to enjoy profiteroles needs to get a kitchen thermometer. Just touch the dough. Not hotter? So it's time to add the eggs.

Secret 6. When and how to introduce eggs

Eggs must be added one at a time, otherwise they will not mix well with the dough and the eclairs will not rise. Knead for a long time and calmly, until the dough becomes completely homogeneous. It should turn out to be oily, not very dense, but keep its shape satisfactorily. It is not necessary to use a jigging bag with nozzles. You can put the dough on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, with a regular spoon, wetting it each time in water.

Secret 7. Baking mode

Ideal conditions for baking eclairs will also ensure you get an excellent result. For the first 10 minutes, bake custard balls (strips) at a temperature of 220 degrees. And then bake at 190 until a brown crust forms, and, if possible, use the hot air convection mode.

Secret 8. With water, eclairs keep their shape better, and with milk they turn out soft and tender.

How does it happen that a void forms inside the future eclairs during the baking process? So if you remember, we added a lot of water to the dough. Once in a hot oven, the water begins to evaporate intensively inside the balls of choux pastry. Steam, as you know, requires a much larger volume than liquid. He inflates the elastic walls of the eclair from a mixture of flour and eggs. Thanks to long kneading, they become so dense that they do not release steam outside. This is how that amazing void is formed inside the eclair, which can now be filled with anything - salads, pates and caviar for profiteroles, custard or butter cream - for eclairs.

Bon appetit!

Elongated tubes with cream - a dessert that is gaining popularity with terrible force! And maybe partly because not everyone can bake it ...

To reveal all the secrets of making capricious eclairs this week, I invited a confectioner Ilya Sudzilovsky, which launched the most expensive eclairs in Moscow! And again I got two articles - in one theory and analysis of errors, and in the other -. Enjoy)

Choux pastry is prepared both on water and on a mixture of water and milk. The addition of milk makes the finished eclair a little softer, more tender, and also contributes to a faster crust and ruddy color. First, as you know, water or milk is heated with butter and salt, sometimes sugar is added. And then - fall asleep the entire amount of flour. At this time it is happening flour making process. And it happens so that the starch of the flour gelatinizes (flour + water + heat) and the dough becomes viscous. Next, the mass is slightly cooled and eggs are added one at a time with stirring, in order to increase the moisture content of the dough.

The better the flour mass is brewed, the more eggs will be required. And indeed, it is not always necessary to lay the number of eggs indicated in the recipe. The main guideline is the consistency of the dough - the dough should lazily flow from the spoon in a triangle.

What happens inside the eclair during baking. Moisture, heating up, begins to evaporate. Moisture in eclairs from eggs and milk or water. Moisture evaporates, the dough stretches, the eclair inflates. The steam encounters resistance in its path due to the high viscosity of the dough (because we boiled it) and the rapidly forming crust.

A large amount of gluten in flour means that when moisture evaporates, the walls of the eclair will stretch, and not tear. When using weak flour, the eclair may not have an empty cavity inside at all. The quality of the flour (quantity and quality of gluten) significantly affects the formation of a void inside the eclair.

Your flour can contain from 9 to 13 grams of protein (look at the package, this is the proportion of gluten). But the proportion of gluten can also vary. Russian ordinary flour contains an average of 25-30% gluten (it is easy to check - you need to knead the dough from 25 g of wheat flour and 13 g of water, give 90 minutes for the development of gluten, and then rinse this dough in cold water until the water will not become clear. Some of the substances (starch, soluble proteins, etc.) will be washed out of the dough, and some will remain in the form of an elastic sticky mass. This is gluten. A piece of gluten must be weighed, and the resulting figure multiplied by 4 - this is the percentage gluten content in flour).

In addition, one of the keys to successful eclair baking is a well-heated oven! Personally, I warm mine for at least 40 minutes at 190 degrees before baking.

The high baking temperature at the very beginning - allows the eclairs to swell. After the growth of eclairs in the oven has ended, and light browning has begun, it means that the drying process has begun. And here the high temperature can already do harm - it will strongly brown the crust, but not dry the inner cavity. Therefore, in different sources you can meet different temperature conditions, even with the opening of the oven door. Remember the main thing - you can’t open the oven in the first 10 minutes! At this time, the steam heats up and inflates your eclairs. And yet, no matter how scary and strange it may sound to you, the baking mode depends on the oven, so you still have to test and check. But I'm sure that now, understanding the processes, it will be a little easier for you to do it 😉

Well, now let's move on to Ilya's answers to your questions.

Well, now we figured out the main mistakes? Share this article with your friends!

Profiteroles, eclairs, choux buns are made from light, airy, crispy choux pastry. Such a dough rises in the oven, increasing in volume several times.

Custards become airy due to the large amount of water in the dough. When steam is formed inside the dough, it rises high up. A large cavity appears inside the products, which is filled with various fillings, creams. Custard cakes have a smooth shiny surface. Choux pastry is also used to make donuts, which are fried in a large amount of oil.

Choux pastry - general principles and methods of preparation

To prepare such a dough, you do not need to have any long experience. It does not roll out and does not knead by hand. Profiteroles can be spooned onto the roasting pan or squeezed out with a piping bag. To make the dough successful, you need to know only two rules:

- the dough must have a certain temperature - about 70-80 degrees to be hot enough, but not to fold the eggs;
Eggs must be warmed to at least room temperature before being introduced.

Before baking, the dough is reheated, or "boiled". In addition to flour, the composition of the dough includes water, butter, margarine, eggs. The number of eggs is selected depending on the amount of flour. It is due to the eggs that the dough becomes loose, rises and is filled with air. Do not add too much sugar to the dough so that it does not caramelize during heating.

Choux pastry - the best recipes:

Choux pastry for cheese eclairs

This is a quick recipe for yeast-free choux pastry. Whoever dares to try it will not be able to remain indifferent to unusual eclairs cooked with cheese and hot peppers (with savory fillings). You can choose any fillings - meat, sweet, cream or vegetable. Fry or bake eclairs in the oven - this is just an incomparable version of choux pastry.

Ingredients: water (250 grams), salt, butter (100 grams, you can take margarine), flour (200 grams), hard cheese (150 grams), paprika (1 tsp), cumin, eggs (5 pieces).

Cooking method:
The usual custard dough begins with the dissolution of butter in water. Pour the flour into the boiling liquid and mix thoroughly. Remove fire and cool. We drive in the eggs one at a time, kneading well after each, rub the cheese into the finished dough and pour in the paprika. If you turn on the fantasy, you can add dried herbs. Fans of spicy, can add ground or hot pepper instead of paprika. The amount of cheese is also arbitrary. But it is simply impossible to spoil eclairs with cheese.

Put the dough on a baking sheet using a pastry bag. The easiest option is to use a regular spoon dipped in water. Sprinkle with cumin and coarse salt. Bake at 220 degrees until golden brown. The main rule when baking is not to open the oven for 10-15 minutes. If the temperature in the oven is too high, the products will first swell, and then they may fall off. If the temperature is too low, cakes do not rise well. Put a little water on the bottom of the oven - then the dough will rise higher.

Choux pastry for cakes with whipped cream

According to this recipe, you can get 12-14 blanks for cakes very quickly. It's easy to fill them with whipped egg whites and sprinkle them with nuts, for example.

Ingredients: butter (50 grams), water (250 grams), salt, flour (150 grams), eggs (4 pcs.).

Cooking method:
We heat water in a saucepan, add salt and butter, heat it up, without bringing the liquid to a boil. We immediately pour all the flour into the pan right on the fire. Stir with a whisk until a lump forms. Knead the dense dough in a lump in a circle for another 2 minutes, as a result, it should separate well from the walls of the pan. Transfer it to a bowl and break the eggs one at a time. Mix the dough, stir it in a circle for 5 minutes. It should be smooth and creamy. Ideally, the custard dough is homogeneous, shiny, and falls off the whisk in long pieces. In a preheated oven to a temperature of 200 degrees, lay out the cakes of the desired shape at a distance so that when baking they do not connect, changing the volume. Bake 30-35 minutes.

Choux pastry for donuts

Delicious tender donuts are fried in a large amount of fat. You will not even have time to fry them, as they will be solemnly eaten by your family.

Ingredients: a glass of water, butter (80 grams), eggs (4 pieces), salt, flour (1 cup), oil for frying.
Cream: 1 cup milk, sugar (0.5 cups), butter (150 grams), vanilla, egg.

Cooking method:
We select suitable dishes and heat the oil in water to about 70-80 degrees, add salt. Remove from heat, stir with a spoon. Put back on the fire, stir the dough until it begins to lag behind the bottom and walls of the pan. Remove from heat, cool slightly and beat in the eggs one at a time until it is smooth and shiny. Heat up oil for frying. Drop the dough into the boiling oil with a teaspoon. There should be a lot of oil, it is desirable that the pieces of dough float and sink in it.

Cream: dissolve the egg in a small saucepan, rub it with sugar and flour. Dilute milk, put on fire. Stirring, cook until thickened, cool and beat with butter. The temperature should not be lower than room temperature. Let the donuts cool, cut and decorate with cream.

— For choux pastry, the quality of the eggs is very important. To make sure they are fresh, you can conduct a test: dip the egg into a glass of water. A stale egg will not stay at the bottom of the glass, but will float up. Eggs that pop up blunt end up should not be used at all.

- Choux pastry does not need to be kneaded with a mixer or combine - if you get carried away too much, it will not be able to rise. The dough should not be thick or runny so that it rises well in the oven, it should double in size.

- Softer and lighter products are obtained from flour with a reduced gluten content.

- Butter can be replaced with margarine or concentrated fats, but it is better, of course, to use natural ingredients. Butter helps cakes rise while baking in the oven.

There are thousands of recipes for custard cakes on the Internet, which differ only in nuances. In principle, everything is simple in the kitchen: mix a dozen ingredients in a certain sequence and observe the temperature regime. But, with all the apparent simplicity, there are a couple of difficulties. It is not always possible to repeat a recipe dish, and if it does, it is often a completely different dish. A vivid example is tiramisu, which you can order anywhere, as if it were a completely different dessert.

The first and biggest problem is kitchen metrology. All recipes operate with the concepts of "slow fire", glasses, spoons and other utensils, the dimensions of which can vary from kitchen to kitchen. With or without a slide? Even if the exact baking temperature is 200 degrees, who will check? From experience, I know that both the cooking time and temperature may not work as indicated in the recipe, and you need to monitor the process, making your own adjustments. And it often seems that recipes are generally written by eye, or tolerances of 20-50% are quite acceptable.

The second difficulty is that often the result depends on the order of mixing the ingredients. For example, if you break eggs into milk, you will never be able to get rid of the small clots of protein, which turn into mini-omelettes during heat treatment. At the same time, if you beat the eggs and then gradually dilute with milk, the mixture will turn out to be uniform.

In addition, there are a number of small tricks that allow you to correct small flaws at different stages.

The magical world of cooking is different from what we do at work or in our free time, and if a recipe book has to be read only occasionally, failure is inevitable. The only way to make friends with the kitchen and become a good cook is constant thoughtful practice :-)

Let's get started!

Custard cakes consist of eclairs and cream.

For the dough we need: a glass of water, a pinch of salt, 80-100 grams of butter or margarine, a glass of flour, 4 eggs.

Pour water into a saucepan, salt and bring to a boil. Add the oil and stir until it becomes a homogeneous mixture. When the water with oil boils, remove from heat and gradually add the sifted flour, stirring the dough intensively with a wide wooden spatula. Put the pan with the dough back on low heat and rub the dough until a smooth mass is obtained. The dough should easily lag behind the walls and bottom of the pan, retain its shape.

In some recipes, they also write that the dough should be shiny at this stage. I did not succeed, most likely, lies. But if you do not keep it on fire here, further down the text it may become too liquid. The whole beauty of custard dough is that the flour is boiled. You can't rush here.

When there is no more strength to endure and it's time to move on, you need to remove the pan from the heat and cool the dough. If the eggs are mixed in now, the protein may curdle and nothing will come of it.

A little trick: it is better to break the eggs not directly into the dough, but into a cup, or bowl, one at a time. So we are guaranteed not to miss a bad egg, if anything, and we can catch pieces of the shell.

Beat the eggs one at a time into the chilled dough, stirring each time until smooth.

The dough is sticky, and strives to hug the spoon with a large piece. Eggs are slippery, and successfully contribute to the sliding of a lump on a spoon over the dishes. Trick: dip the spoon in the egg first. Then it will be possible to first break the lump of dough into several “dumplings”, and tire them out by driving along the yellow mass.

If the eggs are large, you may need fewer eggs than the recipe calls for. Or more if we have a large glass. In general, here is also one of the points where you need to make a decision, and you can fix something. The finished dough should be uniform, shiny and thick enough not to blur on the baking sheet. It should not drip from a spoon.

If the mixture is too thin with the addition of eggs, you can boil the flour with butter again and add to thicken.

When the dough is ready, you need to immediately start baking. It's time to turn on the oven to heat it up. I'm maxing out.

The shape of eclairs can be different: they are often made in the form of sticks, but I like the ovoid shape. On a greased or parchment paper-lined baking sheet, spread the same droplets of dough in rows. I scoop the batter with a tablespoon and then scrape it onto the baking sheet with a teaspoon. Maybe a confectionery syringe would be easier, this has yet to be tried. It should be noted that the size of the eclairs can increase up to 2 times, and do not plant them too tightly. It is important that the droplets are the same size. It is also desirable to avoid streaks and smeared dough.

Baking takes place in 2 stages. The first stage takes place at a high temperature and the success criterion is that the eclairs have increased in volume by about 2 times and have turned brown. Authoritative sources lie about 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees. It took me about half an hour at 220 and I'm not sure if the temperature was sufficient. If after 5 minutes they have not started to rise - a sure sign that the temperature is too low, and there is a risk of getting pancakes instead of custards. With proper growth, you can see, as it were, a turtle shell: the outer crust, drying out, loses its elasticity and cracks, while the inner layers are still growing and pushing the islands apart.

When the growth stopped, the eclairs took shape and browned, reduce the temperature to 180 (sources lie about 150) and let dry. Criterion - they have long ceased to "sweat". If the temperature is reduced too much, they may fall off. Sources say that the products are dried for 10-15 minutes, but it took me another half an hour. Dried eclairs should be light and slightly crispy, as only the outer crust is left. At the same time, they must not burn.

At the end of baking, turn off the oven, open the door and let the baked goods cool slightly.

If everything worked out, the eclairs dried up, became hollow and retain their shape.

While the eclairs are basking in the oven, there is time to make the cream. The cream is good because it is almost impossible to spoil it.

For about 500 g, we need 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 3 tablespoons of flour, a glass of sugar, as well as about 50-100 grams of butter and vanilla sugar to taste.

Mix 2 eggs with milk and, without stopping stirring, gradually add flour. Lumps may remain in the mixture, but do not pay attention to them: they will disperse in the end.

In another bowl, while stirring, bring a glass of milk with a glass of sugar to a boil. Then pour the first mixture (eggs and everything) and vanilla sugar into slowly boiling sweet milk. Don't stop stirring! When the mass stops thickening and becomes uniform, the fire can be turned off. After a few minutes of stirring, the cream is almost ready, all that remains is to beat it with a mixer with butter.

With this amount of cream products, it turns out about 2 times more than it is necessary for eclairs from the dough description. Only it never disappears :-) You can smear it on cookies, or you can make eclairs again - get valuable experience.

How does the cream get inside? Some confectioners prefer to inject cream with a syringe, but I cut the eclair horizontally, leaving the halves still connected, and apply the cream with a spoon. So you can see how cavities formed inside. After all, not everyone likes when only half of the cake is filled with cream, does it? In addition, if the éclairs are not dry enough, there will be some undercooked dough inside, which can be surgically removed if necessary.

Bon appetit!

I made 3 batches of eclairs this weekend. I ate my fill :-) Sorry, friends, but custard cakes are not something that can be stored at my house for a long time.

Look at the comments: kind anonymous people brought a lot of interesting things there!

The fact that choux pastry balloons, which are used to make cakes - eclairs or profiteroles, can be easily baked at home, I learned when I first got married. A week after my move, a young, or rather not quite young husband, baked a whole pile of cheerful ruddy balls. Only he filled them not with cream, but ... mashed potatoes with fried onions. God, how delicious it was!

It is now that I am running my culinary blog http://easycookschool.com, and at that time I was very far from cooking.

Editorial note. Our reader Irina sent her secrets for making custard dough for publication. Dear friends! If you have tips and tricks for cooking, you can send them to us by email and we will publish them.

And it seemed to me that the process of preparing choux pastry was something akin to an alchemical experience. First, something was boiled in a small saucepan, then some incredible amount of eggs was driven into it and mixed with such force with which physics teachers usually turn the handle of a dynamo. As a result, a viscous incomprehensible mass was obtained, which was laid out in shapeless horned lumps on a baking sheet. How and why they then turned into round balls, hollow inside, was a complete mystery to me. It is not surprising that attempts to repeat this experience for me at first ended in failure. However, patience and work will grind everything. Over time, everything began to work out for me. I hope that by using my simple tips, you will avoid the need to go through trial and error and you will get custard dough the first time.

Here we go?

Secret 1. Don't save time in the first step

As you know, the first step in making choux pastry is to boil butter with water or milk and salt. And already at this stage, many make the main mistake. Which one? They are in too much of a hurry. Boil the mixture until the oil stops floating on the surface of the water. Otherwise, it will interfere badly with the dough and your profiteroles simply will not rise.

Secret 2. Be sure to sift the flour

Otherwise, the dough may turn out to be heterogeneous, and the finished eclairs may be uneven.

Secret 3. Flour should get into the “tea tea” all at once

Not everyone is up to this task. After all, if you try to tip a whole cup of flour into a saucepan, then there is a high probability that half will crumble onto the stove. To prevent this from happening, there is one simple trick: sift the flour onto a sheet of baking paper and, lifting the edges of the sheet, pour the flour into a saucepan with boiling water and oil in a neat stream for just a couple of seconds.

Secret 4. Choux pastry must not only be kneaded properly, but also kneaded

Yes, yes, everyone knows that after flour gets into the saucepan, you should immediately grab a spoon and begin to vigorously stir the mixture until it turns into a homogeneous ball of dough that will easily peel off the walls of the saucepan. But if you want to get not just eclairs, but excellent eclairs, be sure to knead the dough with the back of a spoon for two or three minutes.

Secret 5. The dough must cool

Another point that often leads to irreparable consequences is that the dough is not allowed to cool properly before adding the eggs. As a result, the protein is partially curtailed, and eclairs are not obtained. So, ideally, the dough should cool to 60 degrees. Of course, this does not mean that everyone who wants to enjoy profiteroles needs to get a kitchen thermometer. Just touch the dough. Not hotter? So it's time to add the eggs.

Secret 6. When and how to introduce eggs

Eggs must be added one at a time, otherwise they will not mix well with the dough and the eclairs will not rise. Knead for a long time and calmly, until the dough becomes completely homogeneous. It should turn out to be oily, not very dense, but keep its shape satisfactorily. It is not necessary to use a jigging bag with nozzles. You can put the dough on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, with a regular spoon, wetting it each time in water.

Secret 7. Temperature

Ideal conditions for baking eclairs will also ensure you get an excellent result. Bake the custard balls at 220 degrees for the first 10 minutes. And then bake at 190 until a brown crust forms. That's all the secrets.

Finally, the most important thing is a proven recipe: 4 eggs, 150 g flour, 100 g butter, 240 g water or milk. With water, eclairs keep their shape better, and with milk they turn out soft and tender.

Well, as a bonus for those who patiently read our instructions to the end, the answer to the main question: how does it happen that a void forms inside future eclairs during the baking process? So if you remember, we added a lot of water to the dough. Once in a hot oven, the water begins to evaporate intensively inside the balls of choux pastry. Steam, as you know, requires a much larger volume than liquid. He inflates the elastic walls of the eclair from a mixture of flour and eggs. Thanks to long kneading, they become so dense that they do not release steam outside. This is how that amazing emptiness is formed inside the eclair.

Good luck with your baking and bon appetit!