Chocolate Cream Puffs Recipe including tips and trouble shooting (2024)

FAQs

What is the common problem in making cream puff? ›

If the puffs collapse it means there was too much moisture in them. So either you did not dry the dough enough, or they were not cooked enough. To avoid this I recommend drying the dough really well (see below) and cracking the door of the oven open when the choux are baked.

I use either the Wilton 1A Round Tip or Wilton 2A Round Tip for my profiterole pastries and I LOVE my 16 inch disposable pastry bags because they are sturdy, and hold more of the dough. Any 1/2 inch round tip (or similar sized tip) is good for regular profiteroles or cream puffs.

The five faults listed are: mixtures being too soft, pastry not rising and having a solid texture after baking, sinking after removal from the oven, pastry being too thin, and pastry being too thick.

Choux pastries (i.e. cream puffs, eclairs, etc.) won't rise if the oven temperature is too low. For the pastries to rise properly, the temperature needs to be really high at first so that the steam builds up inside of the dough and causes them to rise and hollow out.

If your batter ended up being too runny, possibly you have added a little too much eggs. To fix this, cook a paste using roughly half the choux recipe (water, milk, flour, butter similar to how you started).

NOTE: Do not grease baking sheet, as the grease will cause the dough to flatten. Cut up butter into small pieces. In a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the water and butter; bring mixture to a full rolling boil (make sure the butter has all melted).

When piping choux pastry into eclairs, using a French star nozzle (as pictured here) will reduce the amount of cracking in the pastry as well as help to retain a neater, more consistent eclair shape as it bakes. If you don't have a French star nozzle, an open star nozzle is the next best option.

If piping isn't for you, you can spoon out the dough or use a cookie scoop — my favorite tool! If you use a 1/2-cup scoop, you'll get 10 to 12 puffs.

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.

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

What is the most crucial part in baking choux pastry? ›

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.

Do unfilled cream puffs need to be refrigerated? No - they should be kept in an airtight container. Once filled, (with cream) they need to be kept in the the refrigerator until you are ready to serve them. If kept, filled, in the fridge, they will go soft.

When enough egg has been added the mixture will be glossy and thin enough that a large spoonful will fall heavily from the spoon in one lump (without shaking or tapping the spoon on the side of the saucepan), but thick enough that it doesn't slide off easily.

My choux puffs are too small/too dense/have no cavity/have too small a cavity. If any of the above describes your choux, there's not enough egg in your batter. Choux paste is a simple concoction with no chemical leavening agent, which means it gets all its rising power from eggs.

What makes whipped cream "break"? The stable foam mixture made up of milk fat and tiny air pockets passes its peak of stability. Too much mixing causes the structure of the foam to break down, and allows the air to escape. At this point, you may feel like your whipped cream is ruined.

You're not chilling your bowl. A crucial step that is often overlooked, chilling your bowl is just as important as chilling your cream. Once the chilled cream comes into contact with a warm or even room temperature bowl, the fat inside it will immediately begin to lose its emulsifying properties.