In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been updating the blog on a regular basis. There are multiple reasons, the season of Summer being one of the major contributors. Between Big Winos, a fishing trip on the Texas Gulf Coast, my wife going to New Jersey for two weekends (and thus, taking the camera with her), cooking dinners for my relatives, and just typical summertime laziness, I haven’t wanted to really do anything related to the blog. However, I finally made some time this week to get another entry up. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, some praise and adulation for our fearless author, Michael Ruhlman. In case you didn’t notice, Ratio was listed as a “Best Nonfiction of the Year… So Far” by Amazon.com. Upon perusing this list, you will realize that Ratio is the only cookbook listed. Major props here. More recently, Ratio was #14 on the New York Times Bestsellers list in the category of “Hardcover Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous.” Last I had heard, Ratio was in its fourth printing, and is Michael’s best selling book thus far. Congratulations, Michael, all this adulation is well-deserved. Here’s hoping I can get a signed copy of the Ad Hoc Cookbook when it comes out this fall (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Ok, on to pate a choux. This is quite possibly one of the most versatile doughs/batters around. It’s in the dough section, though technically, I would consider it somewhere between a dough and a batter. You can’t pour it like a batter, but you can’t knead it by hand like a dough. Go ahead, try to knead it by hand. If you thought “club hand” was bad from a breading station, just get this stuff on your hands. It’s sticky and slimy at the same time, kind of like those little plastic eggs that had that “stuff” you could play with. I’m sure I’ll get cancer from that stuff, there’s no way anything like that exists in nature, except for pate a choux. And pate a choux tastes much, much better (don’t ask how I know this).
Considering how simple this is to make, I don’t know why people don’t make it more often. I guess it’s fallen out of favor because it’s got a lot of butter and eggs, things the Health Police have told us mere mortals to avoid. I’m calling shenanigans on the Health Police, because I’ve managed to lose around 48 pounds, and I’ve been eating my fair share of bread, pasta, cookies, and cream puffs from Ratio. So, to the Health Police, I fart in your general direction, and go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.

The ingredients are very simple, like everything else in this book. It’s butter, flour, water, and eggs, and a wee bit of salt for flavoring (don’t leave out the salt). The ratio is equal parts water and eggs, and half as much butter and flour. Simple enough.

I should mention, please turn your oven to 425, or whatever the temperature is for making cream puffs that’s mentioned in the book before you do anything. You’ll see why later.

First step, combine the butter and water. Dump, melt, stir. Done.

Next, I added the flour. It took a while for it to come together, but it eventually did. I then lowered the heat to gently cook out some of the water. I’m trying to make pate a choux, not a roux, and I didn’t want it to start browning. That’s what the oven is for later.

Now that things have come together, I took it off the heat and dropped the whole thing into my mixing bowl. Again, I turn to my stand mixer, and again, it’s because I’m lazy and don’t want to spend a lot of time hand-mixing in these eggs. So in go the eggs, one at a time.

The next question is, is it safe? Well, if your mixture can do this:

it’s safe. This is one thing I learned from watching Alton Brown make pate a choux. If it comes off the mixer in a “V” it’s got enough liquid in it. Basically, the dough is done. Now, what direction should I go? I decided to do cream puffs, since they are relatively easy, and I didn’t want to mess with making a bunch of gnocchi. I’ll do those another time. Eventually.

Now, I don’t own a pastry bag. I hate them. They are impossible to clean, and not really sanitary. However, I do own plenty of plastic bags, and some pastry tips. If you don’t have a set of pastry tips, don’t sweat it. Just cut a tip off one of the corners of the bag, and presto, instant pastry bag that can go in the trash when you’re done.

Piping the dough onto the pan wasn’t that difficult, except for the fact that this dough is really loose, and flows very easily. Some of the puffs are a little bigger than I wanted them, but I’ll manage. Just means they’re bigger to hold more ice cream. I didn’t have enough room on the pan for the entire dough, so I made another one, partially loaded.

Time to knock down those pesky tips, and I have just the tool for that, a silicon basting brush. Ironically, this is the only thing it’s good for, which leads me into a small rant. If you want a good basting brush, DO NOT BUY A SILICONE BASTING BRUSH. They are crap. Since they are silicone, the don’t hold on to anything, so you can’t load the brush with anything. You end up brushing, and dipping, and brushing, and dipping, etc. Don’t do it. Just get a bristle style brush, and all will be well. However, the one thing this brush is really good at is knocking the tips off the tops of the cream puffs. I’m glad I found a use for it, because it works really well.

Into the oven they go, and after 10 minutes, the temperature gets reduced to finish cooking the insides.

Out they come, and yeaaaaaa, well, not quite. They certainly cooked, but didn’t puff up like they should have. In goes the second pan.

The second pan turned out much better. I’m going ahead and assuming it’s because the oven had been running longer, and everything in the oven was hotter so the temperature didn’t fall as much. Still, for a first run at cream puffs, I’ll take it.

The verdict? WIN. It’s ridiculously easy to make, and so extremely versatile. Fillings can run the gamut of sweet to savory, and this dough can be tweaked with some sugar to make éclairs and such, or add some cheese and herbs for the savory ones. Personally, I’m a fan of the plain ones with a sweet filling, because I like how the sweet and savory play off of each other. Plus, if you mess it up, you don’t have to feel guilty about throwing it in the trash, and you’ll probably have enough time to whip up another batch.

Next up is pound cake.  Should be fun, as I can’t recall the last time I made a pound cake.  Stay tuned.

C is for Cookieeeee!!!! Nom nom nom!!!

If that doesn’t bring back flashbacks for my dear readers, you’re either too young to remember, or you grew up living under a rock. As I remember, it didn’t matter what kind of cookies they were, Cookie Monster liked them all. Chocolate chip, sugar, macaroons, shortbread, he ate them all, or at least tried to. I seem to recall he’d manage to get about half of them in his mouth, and the rest would end up as crumbs in his shaggy blue fur. Continue reading →