Choux pastry
16 March 2019 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nerakrose posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
gluten_freeI just learned that apparently gluten free choux pastry is a very tricky thing, which is a surprise to me because I didn't know that. I've made it several times, with two different commercial flour blends, and it's always come out just fine. (Maybe the trick is that I didn't know it was tricky, so I just did it? Who was it that said 'don't tell me the odds' - Han Solo?)
ANYWAY.
This recipe makes about 30 small puffy things.
Ingredients
150g flour of your choice *
2 1/2dl water
100g butter
1/4tsp salt
4-5 eggs
* My favourite commercial blend is the Provena Gluten-Free Baking Flour with Oats, which is also what I used the last time, but in the past I've also had success with the red Finax flourblend (which is mostly wheat starch, powedered milk, and stabilisers).
Procedure
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius (sorry Fahrenheit folks).
Heat water, butter and salt in a casserole until the butter is melted. Bring to the boil briefly, then take the pot off the heat. Add the flour and stir with vigour with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and comes free from the sides of the pot. NOTE: depending on your flour mix, you might need to add a little more flour to make this happen. Let the dough cool for a bit.
When the dough is no longer piping hot but still hot (but not so hot eggs will scramble instantly), add one egg and stir with the same wooden spoon, with vigour, until the egg is incorporated. This is the hard part as it'll look and feel like the egg will NEVER incorporate, but just keep going. (And switch arms when the going gets hard.) When the egg is incorporated, add another egg. Keep going until the dough is shiny and just soft enough that it'll come off the spoon like very thick custard.
You might not need all the eggs. If your eggs are large, 3-4 might do it, if they're small, 5-6 might do it. I tend to use M/L sized eggs and last time I used all 5. If you're unsure about how much egg to add, you can always whisk the remaining 1-2 eggs together and just add small amounts at a time until the dough looks right, so you won't accidentally overdo it.
Then you do whatever you want with the dough! Put it in a piping bag (I never do this, I never feel like the dough is actually soft enough that it can be piped comfortably), or just scoop with a tablespoon, to put it on your baking sheet.
Bake at 200 degrees C until done. (Depending on size, 20-30 minutes.) If using the hot air function in your oven, bake at 190 degrees C.
These are small, and took about 20 minutes to bake.
The final product, Icelandic carnival buns (bolludagsbollur). Filled with homemade raspberry jam**, whipped cream, and topped with cocoa icing. The traditional way to make these is to slice the puff in half with a knife to fill them using a spoon, which is why they look Like That, but obv you can do like the rest of the world and just pipe the filling in through a small hole.
Here's older pictures of the same things made with the Finax blend:
The colour difference stems from the colour of the egg yolk coming through more bright when using the Finax blend (which is white) and the Provena mix having a high oat content, which makes the flour (and the baking done with it) duller, as the flour is more grey in colour. Also, different days and different lighting and all, but the Provena oat flours do tend to look grey.
** If there's interest, I'll post the recipe for that too. This jam actually contains only two tablespoons maple syrup - the recipe comes from a Danish cook book for baking gluten free, dairy free, & no white sugar.
ANYWAY.
This recipe makes about 30 small puffy things.
Ingredients
150g flour of your choice *
2 1/2dl water
100g butter
1/4tsp salt
4-5 eggs
* My favourite commercial blend is the Provena Gluten-Free Baking Flour with Oats, which is also what I used the last time, but in the past I've also had success with the red Finax flourblend (which is mostly wheat starch, powedered milk, and stabilisers).
Procedure
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius (sorry Fahrenheit folks).
Heat water, butter and salt in a casserole until the butter is melted. Bring to the boil briefly, then take the pot off the heat. Add the flour and stir with vigour with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and comes free from the sides of the pot. NOTE: depending on your flour mix, you might need to add a little more flour to make this happen. Let the dough cool for a bit.
When the dough is no longer piping hot but still hot (but not so hot eggs will scramble instantly), add one egg and stir with the same wooden spoon, with vigour, until the egg is incorporated. This is the hard part as it'll look and feel like the egg will NEVER incorporate, but just keep going. (And switch arms when the going gets hard.) When the egg is incorporated, add another egg. Keep going until the dough is shiny and just soft enough that it'll come off the spoon like very thick custard.
You might not need all the eggs. If your eggs are large, 3-4 might do it, if they're small, 5-6 might do it. I tend to use M/L sized eggs and last time I used all 5. If you're unsure about how much egg to add, you can always whisk the remaining 1-2 eggs together and just add small amounts at a time until the dough looks right, so you won't accidentally overdo it.
Then you do whatever you want with the dough! Put it in a piping bag (I never do this, I never feel like the dough is actually soft enough that it can be piped comfortably), or just scoop with a tablespoon, to put it on your baking sheet.
Bake at 200 degrees C until done. (Depending on size, 20-30 minutes.) If using the hot air function in your oven, bake at 190 degrees C.
These are small, and took about 20 minutes to bake.
The final product, Icelandic carnival buns (bolludagsbollur). Filled with homemade raspberry jam**, whipped cream, and topped with cocoa icing. The traditional way to make these is to slice the puff in half with a knife to fill them using a spoon, which is why they look Like That, but obv you can do like the rest of the world and just pipe the filling in through a small hole.
Here's older pictures of the same things made with the Finax blend:
The colour difference stems from the colour of the egg yolk coming through more bright when using the Finax blend (which is white) and the Provena mix having a high oat content, which makes the flour (and the baking done with it) duller, as the flour is more grey in colour. Also, different days and different lighting and all, but the Provena oat flours do tend to look grey.
** If there's interest, I'll post the recipe for that too. This jam actually contains only two tablespoons maple syrup - the recipe comes from a Danish cook book for baking gluten free, dairy free, & no white sugar.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-17 12:29 am (UTC)Haha yeah, I'm as European as they come and pretty much only have accesss to European products (I live in Denmark). Finax I believe is a Danish brand, Provena is Finnish. Most have wheat starch in, if they're not corn starch based (Schär (Italian) and Semper (Swedish) do mostly corn starch based products). I don't have great experiences with the corn based ones so tend to avoid them. Some of the Semper mixes have worked very well for me, and Amo (another Danish brand) tend to use rice flour/potato starch/buckwheat blends, some of which have also been really good.