Everyday Epicurean

Chocolate & Zucchini: Chouquettes : the Recipe

Having read Clotilde’s Chouquette adventures, I decided to give them a try. French pastries in Australia have a reputation for being fiddley and difficult to make, so I was quite surprised at how simple the recipe seemed.

Having never made choux pastry before I followed the recipe (rather than experiment), although I did manage to get ahead of myself and add the first egg while the roux was too warm. In an attempt to remedy this slight oversight, I introduced the mix to a nearby standing fan while stirring to cool it.

My only real downfall is a lack of large crystal sugar. I’ve used raw sugar (it being the sugar with the largest crystals I have in the pantry), and also topped a few with choc-chips (as per David Lebovitz’s recipe).

Here’s how they turned out:

!/recipes/images/chouquettes.jpg (Chouquettes)!

I suspect either my oven is too hot ( _started at 230C, changed down to 220C after 10 mins or so, then a further drop to 200C and changed from the fan element to the bottom element + fan_ ) or they need less time to cook. I was loathe to leave them in the hot oven for a further 10 mins to “cool”, so I opted for a 4 min oven cooling, followed by some rack time. I think I also might have chosen too large a spoon, as these things are the size of profiteroles rather than chouquettes and I only made 16 (rather than 25).