PÂTE À CHOUX

Question 1

PÂTE À CHOUX

Answer 1

2 PARTS WATER: 1 PARTS FLOUR: 1 PART BUTTER: 2 PARTS EGG (plus salt)

Question 2

Why is pâte à choux one of the coolest flour and water mixtures in the kitchen?

Answer 2

It’s easy to make, delicious all by itself, can be a pedestal for any number of sweet or savory ingredients, can be cooked in the oven, water, or oil (each type of heat creating different and wonderful effects).

Question 3

pâte à choux is also known as what?

Answer 3

Choux paste or cream puff dough.

Question 4

What does pate a choir defy a precise label?

Answer 4

Because it’s not really a batter or a dough. Though it goes through stages of both.

Question 5

How does pâte à choux start as a batter, then a dough, then back to a dough?

Answer 5

It begins as a lose combination of water, butter, and flour–like a batter. Then it’s cooked and the starch gelatinizes, and the mixture becomes stiff, more dough like. Then eggs are added, beaten in, and the dough thins out, headed to the direction of a batter. You’re left with partially cooked dough batter.

Question 6

What is a profiterole?

Answer 6

Pâte à chop with chocolate on top and ice cream inside.

Question 7

When chop paste is baked, what happens?

Answer 7

Vaporizing water causes dough to puff and creates an airy crumb.

Question 8

What is parisienne gnocchi?

Answer 8

Pate a choux dough that is piped into boiling water and cooked like pasta.

Question 9

What are beignets made from pate a choir called in France?

Answer 9

Pets de nonne, or nun’s farts.

Question 10

Is pate a choux the dough used for churros in Mexico and the American variant, funnel cake?

Answer 10

Yes

Question 11

Can pate a choux be used as a panade? Explain.

Answer 11

Yes, it’s made of starch and moisture with eggs so it can be used to bing or for texture in pates and meatloaf.

Question 12

Can pate a choux be used with mashed potatoes? What’s this called?

Answer 12

Can also be used to bind mashed potatoes, which are piped out and deep fried. A preparation called pommes dauphine (the choux paste leavens the croquettes.) You can also pan fry them for exquisitely light potato pancakes.

Question 13

What ratio of potato and pate a choux should be used?

Answer 13

2 parts potato (2/3): 1 parts pate a choux (1/3)

Question 14

What can be used in place of water?

Answer 14

Milk or flavored liquid (such as stock).

Question 15

What is Gnocchi a la Romaine?

Answer 15

Pate a choux treated almost like a polenta by using semolina flour, spread on a sheet tray, cooled, and cut into shapes to be grilled or sautéed.

Question 16

Pate a choux by volume.

Answer 16

1 cup water: 1/2 cup butter: 1 cup flour: 1 cup egg.

Question 17

How long should you keep cooking pate a choux once it forms a dough?

Answer 17

1 to 2 minutes to remove excess moisture.

Question 18

How long can pate a choux last in its raw form?

Answer 18

It can be cooked immediately or refrigerated for up to one day until ready to use.

Question 19

What happens when you first add eggs to the choux dough?

Answer 19

It looks as if the dough won’t accept them. The paste will go from shiny to flat, slippery to furry, when the eggs are fully in.

Question 20

What is a gougère?

Answer 20

Pate a choux with added cheese (grated).

Question 21

What cheeses are often used for gougeres?

Answer 21

Comte or Emmental.

Question 22

Why should you press down peaks of choux dough after piping?

Answer 22

The small tips could burn.

Question 23

What temp should the oven be for pate a choux?

Answer 23

Start at 425ºF for 10 minutes then reduce to 350ºF.

Question 24

When making Parisienne gnocchi, what should be changed with the pate a choux?

Answer 24

Water should be reduced by 25% for a firmer products while salt and cheese should be added.

Question 25

What does lining a gnocchi with the forks end do?

Answer 25

Visual texture and grooves for sauce.

Question 26

Great way to freeze Parisienne gnocchi.

Answer 26

Pipe directly on to a sheet tray in long cylinders or bars. Cut as needed.

Question 27

Can you use pate a choux for chicken and dumplings?

Answer 27

Yes, load the choux with tarragon and chives.

Question 28

Recipe for gnocchi a la Romaine.

Answer 28

2 cups milk
2 ounces butter
2 teaspoons salt
4 ounces semolina
pepper and nutmeg to taste
1/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano
2 large egg yolks

Question 29

How to prepare gnocchi a la romaine.

Answer 29

Cook like polenta and spread out onto sheet tray so it’s 3/4 inch thick. Cool, cut desired shape, top with cheese and bake at 425ºF.

Question 30

What is batter?

Answer 30

A dough you can pour; a dough with more liquids than solids.

Question 31

What do betters do to gluten?

Answer 31

Spreads the gluten out so that networks are fluid; batters don’t hold air the same way doughs do.

Question 32

Most flour-water mixtures require some form of leavening or you end up with what?

Answer 32

Hardtack, a simple type of cracker or biscuit, made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Pasta and some cookies are the exception.

Question 33

To leaven batters, we usually rely on what?

Answer 33

Eggs, baking powder, and baking soda.

Question 34

Much of baking, especially batters, is predicated less on the ingredients than what?

Answer 34

The order in which the ingredients are combined and the way they are combined.

Question 35

If you combined butter and sugar, beat them, then add flour and eggs, what will you end up with?

Answer 35

Dense, rich pound cake.

Question 36

If you combine eggs and sugar first, beat them, then add flour and butter, what will you have?

Answer 36

A light, airy, tender sponge cake.

Question 37

What mixing method or technique is used to make pound cake?

Answer 37

Creaming method

Question 38

What mixing method or technique is used to make sponge cake?

Answer 38

Foaming method

Question 39

What mixing method or technique is used to make crepes, pancakes, or muffins?

Answer 39

Straight mixing method

Question 40

Lining your cake pan with what makes removing baked goods easy and clean?

Answer 40

Parchment

Question 41

The critical role of the mixing method means that while ratios are important with batters, they’re less important to understand than what?

Answer 41

The mixing method; or rather, the ratios are variable; you can make pound cake using only half the butter and it will still be a pound cake (though a little bit cagier and less rich) provided you use the creaming method.

Question 42

The skill at which the ingredients have been mixed can often mean the difference between what?

Answer 42

Good and great.

Question 43

What is most interesting and likable about batters?

Answer 43

What they teach us about the similarities between the extensive variety of preparations, the impact of the proportions of fundamental ingredients.

Question 44

Batters are almost incestuously linked to one another an show what?

Answer 44

An exceptionally delicate balance between one another.

Question 45

The loosest of the batters is ______, and we move up with increasing proportions of ______ to ______, _____ and ______, _______, _______, and so on in potentially infinite variations until you hit the point of fulcrum and tip over into dough, pate a choux, pasta, pie, cookie, and bread (in that order on the batter dough continuum).

Answer 45

crepe, popover, pancake, fritter, muffin, cake

Question 46

How is a crepe different from a popover?

Answer 46

Popovers typically use half as much egg.

Question 47

How is a crepe different from a pancake?

Answer 47

A pancake has more flour and less egg (and include chemical leavener and sometimes butter, which adds to cakiness).

Question 48

How is a fritter batter different from a pancake?

Answer 48

A little more flour, but for most purposes you can use a basic thick pancake batter, without butter, for fritters. But you could also call that kind of batter a muffin batter.

Question 49

How is a crepe different from a muffin?

Answer 49

In the exact same way that it’s different from a pancake, which is a muffin batter cooked in a skillet.

Question 50

How is a crepe different from a sponge cake?

Answer 50

The ingredients are similar in proportion, but instead of milk, butter is used, along with 1 part sugar. Not to mention the mixing method (creaming) is different.

Question 51

Difference between gifted pastry chefs and cooks?

Answer 51

Seen the crepe-cake continuum more clearly for longer, rather than seeing crepe equalling one set of instructions, cake another, and so have been able to improvise; they understand how small adjustments in fat, flour, egg and sugar can result in satisfying nuances of lightness and delicacy or richness in flavor and texture.

Question 52

Why the author loves cooking?

Answer 52

It’s all one thing. Which is the ultimate comfort in a life fraught with uncertainty and questions.

Question 53

Angel food cake tops tend to sink so what’s a suitable alternative (clever really)?

Answer 53

Filling a springform pan with the batter and pressing a glass into the center.