The Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Filled Pate a Choux Swans

Pate a Choux, or in our house, Pikachu to be nerdy, has proven to be quite the Daring Bakers’ Challenge this month. Over a month’s time, I have tried to make Pate a Choux 7 times, using 28 eggs, 42 tablespoons of butter, 7 cups of flour, and 7 tablespoons of sugar and salt. In its simplest form, Pate a Choux is nothing more than the pastry dough that makes up an eclair. It is just a few eggs, several tablespoons of butter, a cup of flour, and a little sugar and salt. Sounds like a breeze, right? Wrong! Nothing could be further from the truth! Do not let the short ingredient list fool you! This recipe challenge is not for the faint of heart! In my opinion, it is the devil incarnate! But, I digress…

The first 3-4 times were a complete disaster! (OK, so I thought I was done with my rant…apparently not) The dough never solidified, thus I had to begin again and again. After trying a different recipe, I finally had some success with the dough forming in the pan, allowing me to add the eggs, and fill the pastry bag. The swan heads came fairly easy, but I piped the bodies too flat. Once out of the oven, the heads again were perfect. They were puffed and golden brown, but the bodies weren’t done and what puff they had, quickly deflated.

The 6th time I tried, I had perfected the dough and getting it into the oven was a breeze, but, (yes, there is a big BUT),  I had dripped something onto the oven floor prior to their arrival, thus smoking out my poor Pate a Choux swans. They were not blog worthy, so I began again, again.

The 7th and final go round with my Pikachu was a complete success! The dough formed nicely in the pan, the eggs were added, the swans were piped, and all were puffed and golden. Once cooled, I sliced the swan bodies in half and sliced the top half to make the wings. I then added Chantilly cream (which was the easiest part of the entire process!) to the bottom half, added the head carefully(which I wanted to rip off at this point), and placed the wings neatly on top.

When it comes to this challenge (or my life for that matter) I am not sure whether I would call myself stubborn and hard headed or determined and steadfast, but the ladder sounds better to me, so I will go with that. For anyone attempting Pate a Choux, I recommend a bakery!

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

Here is the challenge in its entirety!