Choux pastry (pâte à choux in French) is a delicate dough prepared with milk, water, butter, flour, sugar, eggs and seasoning.
While baking, the high moisture creates steam and raises the pastry. Choux puffs is used in many notable desserts including Profiteroles, Éclairs and Chouquettes. The very low quantity of sugar allows tiny choux puffs to make Gougères (cheese puffs) and a range of finger food served for aperitif.
A little bit of history…
According to some cookbooks, Catherine De Medici’s head chef named Pantarelli or Pantanelli invented the dough in 1540, seven years after he left Florence with Medici and her court. He used the dough to make “Pâte à Pantanelli”. Over time, the recipe of the dough evolved, and the name changed to pâte à popelin, which was used to make popelins supposedly made to resemble the shape of a woman’s breasts. Popelins were common aristocratic desserts in the 16th century, and were flavored with cheese or citrus (for example lemon peel, orange blossom water, etc.). They were prepared from dough that had been dried over a fire to evaporate its water, called pâte à chaud (literally meaning ‘hot pastry’). From this, the name “pâte à choux” was derived (contrasting to the common misconception that the name derives itself from the rounded forms of the choux pastry resembling cabbage, as choux literally means ‘cabbage’ in French).Then, royal pastry chefs Jean Avice and Antoine Carême, who worked in the court of Marie Antoinette, made modifications to the recipe in the 18th century, resulting in the recipe most commonly used now for profiteroles.
