10 Great Reasons To Have Choux Pastry On Your Menu
There is a growing demand for patisserie and in particular classic desserts that have been updated and modernised. Choux pastry is a fantastic example of this in that the traditional eclairs and profiteroles, as well as classics like the Paris Brest or St Honore, have been modernised by pastry chefs, but they still retain the amazing tastes and textures that choux pastry is known for. The basic ingredients remain relatively inexpensive so in a world of rising food prices they are a very attractive product for cafés, bakeries, caterers and restaurants to have on their menus.
Here are 10 great reasons to have choux pastry on your menu:
You can make choux products consistently well. Finding the right recipe for choux that provides you with consistently excellent results can be difficult to find. Although there are many recipes available online and in recipe books, many do not provide some of the critical information necessary to achieve consistent results. With the right recipe and knowledge, choux pastry becomes something that can be made with consistency and excellence. The techniques are not complex but there are certain key parts to the method that eliminate common issues. Recipes will vary but some key points include which flour to use, the right fat content of butter, what temperature to cool your batter to before adding the eggs, when to rest your batter and efficient ways to make and store in mass. Once you have this knowledge you can confidently make choux pastry products with consistency and train your team how to do this.
You don’t need any special equipment: All you need are weighing scales, saucepan, heat resistant spatula, jug, mixer, probe thermometer, piping bag, nozzle, baking tray and an oven; most home enthusiasts have these items let alone a commercial kitchen. Yes, for the fancier styles or décor you may need some more specialist items (such as moulds) but generally you do not in order to make beautiful choux pastry that tastes amazing.
Make in Quantity: You can make choux pastry in large numbers but still make it with consistency and quality, which makes it a very efficient product to make. Individual chefs or small teams can make it in large numbers. For example, an industry standard 60 x 40cm tray would comfortably fit 15 very generously sized individual portion choux buns (like we used to sell in our pâtisserie). A small commercial oven with only 4 trays means one can bake 60 at a time, and larger 10 tray ovens mean baking 150 a time. For a smaller afternoon tea sized choux bun you would get approximately 50-60 on the same sized tray.
Easily Stored: Choux pastry can be stored easily. Can choux pastry be made in advance and can you freeze choux pastry? The answers to these questions are yes. You can bake choux pastry and then freeze the pastries (before they are filled or decorated). They can then be taken out of the freezer and refreshed in the oven before being filled and decorated. Also you can freeze choux pastry after it has been piped into whatever shape you are planning to use but before it is baked; it can then be stored in the freezer for later use. Its ease of storage adds to its efficiency because once you have made the choux pastry in quantity you can store it in the freezer until you are ready to use it. You then just need to take out whatever number you need for the day. From an efficiency point of view, if you freeze the choux pastry in its piped but unbaked state, there is the added benefit of taking up far less freezer space.
Inexpensive Ingredients: Choux pastry is relatively inexpensive to make; its ingredients are flour, butter, eggs, milk, water and salt (some recipes also have sugar or invert sugar). Yes, prices for these ingredients have increased a lot in the last couple of years but you are only using very small amounts for each choux pastry and the same applies for your choice of filling and decoration. Even with the use of good quality ingredients the cost per pastry is fairly modest.
Profitable: Provided the choux pastry is decorated and filled with attractive flavours it will command a premium. Make them small and pretty or go big if that’s your thing, either way provided they look and taste good you will command a good price for them.
Versatile flavours: You can make choux pastry in any number of different shapes and sizes and you can also then fill and decorate them in endless combinations of flavours. You can make them sweet, savoury, hot or cold. There is huge variety in sweet fillings including crème patissiere, crème diplomat, crème mousseline, cremeux, set creams with gelatine and chocolate, fruit crème patissiere or even ice cream / gelato. One can also double fill them by adding caramels, compotes, jams or jellies. Choux pastry also lends itself to an endless array of savoury fillings to include anything from a gougeres to smoked salmon and cream cheese Paris Brest. Choux pastry in some variety can be used for almost all food occasions breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, nibbles with drinks and through to dinner.
People love it!: Choux pastry has always been popular but in recent years it has had a huge increase in popularity. Much of this has come about from pastry chefs exploiting the almost endless variety of ways that choux pastry can be filled and decorated to put a modern twist on it. With the help of social media, people’s interest in the modern variety of choux pastry has been piqued. Such is its popularity, some businesses predominantly sell only choux pastry products.
Variety in Presentation. There is an endless list of ways that you can present choux pastry. There are many different shapes and sizes and infinite methods and styles of decorating choux pastry. At one end of the scale may be a gougere or profiterole through to a Paris Brest and to an elaborately decorated and filled choux bun.
It tastes amazing! Choux pastry in combination with the right fillings and décor has wonderful flavour and texture. Like other pastry products, even in its simplest form there is something about having an outer case which is then filled with a wonderfully flavoured and smooth filling. Provided you are using good quality ingredients and applying the right techniques there is no reason why you can’t also have choux pastry products that taste amazing.