Tuna Cream Puff - Choux Pastry Part 1

Choux Pastry, like the Genoise Sponge or the Sweet Crust Pastry (and quite a few more others) is one of those fundamental recipes that every self respecting baker needs to know. These, I believe would be the first lessons in a proper baking school. However, few of us will have the patience to work on these seemingly plain recipes. I remember when I first started baking, I had wanted so desperately to create something that is visually pretty e.g. cupcakes or something that is rich in taste like muffins that melt in your mouth or anything that is richly chocolatey chocolate. It was much later, after many overdoses of sugary sweetness and buttery richness that I found repreive in the lightness of Chiffon cakes.
I only remember making choux pastry once long time ago. It was done half heartedly out of curiosity.

During my last trip to Taipei a week ago, I spent my whole evening after work happily buried in the recipe book collection at the hip and famous Eslite Bookstore(诚品书店) . I came back with a luggage that weighed a ton. Among the books I bought, this one titled I (heart) Puff is a Chinese translated Japanese cookbook dedicated entirely to choux puff pastry. It is so detailed and so complete that I have decided that my next few postings will be on puff pastry.

This first Choux Pastry posting is modified from the basic choux pastry,replacing butter with Canola oil. As a result, the puff turns out light and fluffy, it stays soft and does not harden in the fridge. I also chose to work with a savoury filling instead of the classic creame patissierie.

Overall, a relatively easy pastry to make but it can still impress with the many variations of fillings that one can work with.



Recipe :

Choux Pastry
All purpose flour 30g
Bread flour(high protein) 30g
Canola Oil 40g
Water 50ml
Milk 50ml
Sugar 2g
Salt 1g
Eggs 2 beaten

Tuna Cream
Canned Tuna(in water) 160g
Mayonnaise 60g
Salt, pepper to taste

Method
1.In a heavy saucepan, please water, sugar, salt, milk and canola oil(choux pastry) and bring to boil.
2.Remove the saucepan from heat and add all the flour and stir briskly with a spatula.
3.The flour will 'soak' up the the liquid and oil to form a dough. Return the saucepan with the sticky dough onto the heat source. Over gentle heat, continue to stir and cook the dough until dough develops a tackiness and leaves a thin sticky film at the bottom of the saucepan.
4. Remove dough into a blending bowl. Add beaten egg a little at a time and stir well. You will know the right consistency is achieved when the scooped batter, falls off the spatula gradually and leaves a triangle trail drooping from the spatula. (To take the guessing out of this, I used 2 60g eggs(with shell) and get what I feel is the right consistency)
5. Transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain piping tip.
6. Pipe the 4cm rounds onto a baking tray laid with baking paper, leaving a 3cm gap in between each round of piped batter.
7. Bake the pastry in a 200C preheated oven for 20mins-30mins.
8. Cool the choux puffs completely. Split the puff with a serrated knif.
9. To make the Tuna Cream filling, put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Using a star tip, pipe the tuna cream onto the bottom half of the split puff and place the top half over the piped cream.