Our new article is celebratory. We mixed two desserts, eclairs and charlotte and we made a “choux charlotte”!
So, in our new festive article we will research choux and charlotte, find desserts made with choux pastry (pâte à choux) and make our own “choux charlotte” with eclairs filled with chocolate whipped cream, caramel Bavarian cream and caramelised nuts for Giorgos’ birthday!
Choux pastry (pâte à choux) is one of the main doughs of French pastry. As we read in our professional book Pâtisserie & Baking Foundations (2012) by the chefs of the Le Cordon Bleu school, choux pastry is a dough with a light, airy texture. This texture is due to the high level of humidity which creates steam during baking. The steam is trapped, thanks to its high fat content (butter). This creates the puffs, with a hard, crispy shell on the outside and a void inside, ideal for filling.
Charlotte is a cake that has ladyfingers on the perimeter and cream in the center. Charlotte is made in a special bucket-shaped form. Bread or cakes can be used instead of ladyfingers. We in our “choux charlotte” will use eclairs made with choux pastry!
As we have learned, the name charlotte comes from the old English word charlyt which means «a dish of custard». Also, in the 15th century there were meat dishes named charlets which were quite populae.
Charlotte -or charlotte russe as the full name is- is said to have been created by the great French confectioner of the 18th-19th centuries Marie-Antoine Carême, in honor of the Russian Tsar Alexander I for whom he worked (russe means Russian in French). Some historians claim that the name refers to the sister-in-law of the Tsar, Queen Charlotte, who was the wife of George III, King of England and Scotland.
In our recipe we chose to substitute the ladyfingers for eclairs, to experiment a bit! Various desserts are made with choux pastry, which we will see through short descriptions and photos, to get a taste of France, before preparing our own hybrid “choux charlotte”!
Cream puff
The simplest form of choux pastry dessert is an individual puff with a filling. It can be covered with craquelin, a crunchy coating of dough made with sugar, flour and butter.
Cream puffs
Cream puffs with a caramel coating and a vanilla filling are a typical and beloved treat in Greece…
Eclairsclairs in their classic version are filled with chocolate cream and glazed with chocolate on top. What sets them apart is their elongated shape.
Salambos
Salambos are oval pastries filled with cream, with caramel coating. In traditional salambos, according to Jacquy Pfeiffer, the cream is flavored with kirch or rum.
Profiteroles
In Greece, we really like profiteroles, ie puffs filled with cream with plenty of chocolate sauce on top. One will find them in a wide variety of delicious combinations, as well as filled with ice cream!
Paris-Brest
Paris-Brest is a ring-shaped dessert made of choux pastry, usually filled with a hazelnut-flavored mousseline cream. Paris-Brest was a cycling race created in 1891. Participants had to make the journey from Paris to Brest and back to the British coast, as we read in Jacquy Pfeiffer’s The Art of French Pastry (2013). The distance was 1200 km and the winner made it in 71 hours and 22 minutes without sleeping at all! Paris-Brest dessert was made in 1910 by chef Louis Durand in the shape of a bicycle wheel, as for the race.
Religieuses
Religieuses are puffs filled with pastry cream and glazed, that have an extra cream puff on top!
Swans
Swans are a very impressive treat made with choux pastry. To make a swan one must form its delicate parts with a small piping nozzle.
Saint Honoré
Saint Honoré is a dessert dedicated to the patron saint of bakers and confectioners, the Catholic Saint Honorius bishop of Amiens who lived in the 4th century. We have read that when it became known in his hometown that he had been ordained a bishop, his old nursemaid did not want to believe it and said that it was just as likely as for the wooden baker’s peel she was holding in order to bake bread to become a tree. When she put it on the , it miraculously turned into a blackberry tree. That is why the Saint is often depicted holding the baker’s peel.
Saint Honoré dessert is made with a puff pastry base, pastry cream and whipped cream on top, together with caramelized cream puffs.
Croquembouche
Perhaps the most striking dessert made with choux pastry is croquembouche! It is a tall, conical tower made of cream puffs that are held in place and decorated with caramel. In France it is the ultimate festive dessert, according to Jacquy Pfeiffer, and is common at weddings, engagements, christenings and other formal occasions.
Whichever dessert you chose to make, first of all you must prepare a choux pastry, or pâte à choux as the French call it!
Our recipe
Choux pastry (pâte à choux)
Ingredients for the choux pastry
| Water | 240 ml |
| Butter | 100 gr |
| Bread flour | 150 gr |
| Eggs | 4-5 |
| Salt | a pinch |
| Sugar | 2 tsp |
How to make choux pastry
Place the water, butter, salt and sugar into a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the butter. Remove the pan from the heat and immediately add the flour. Return to the heat and stir quickly with a spatula or wooden spoon. The mixture will be ready when it leaves a thin layer at the bottom of the saucepan and comes off the sides.
Transfer the dough to the mixer bucket and beat for a while on medium to reduce the temperature of the dough. Then add the eggs one by one, waiting for the egg to be incorporated before adding the next one. The goal is to make a soft dough that will gather around the whisk attachments. We needed four eggs, but you may need to add a little more if the eggs are small.
Fill a pastry bag (or a simple food bag) and form eclair shapes in a pan lined with parchment paper. For the paper to not move, you can “stick” it with a little dough on the baking tray.
Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes and at 180°C for another 10 minutes. Then open the oven door to let the steam out and let your puffs and eclairs inside to dry, having the oven door slightly open.
Chocolate whipped cream filling
To fill our eclairs and puffs we will make a filling of whipped cream with a light chocolate flavor, without sugar to keep our dessert as healthy as possible.
Ingredients for the chocolate whipped cream
| Chocolate couverture | 200 gr |
| Heavy cream | 400 gr |
How to make the chocolate whipped cream
Cut the couverture into small pieces and melt it in a saucepan. At the same time, beat the heavy cream with the mixer. Incorporate the melted chocolate into the whipped cream, beating for a while with the mixer until the ingredients are combined.
Bavarian cream
Now, in order to make a “choux charlotte” with our eclairs we have to make a Bavarian cream to fill our mould. This cream can be used in any charlotte or layer cake you wish to make.
Ingredients for the Bavarian cream
| Milk | 200 ml |
| Heavy cream | 200 ml |
| Sugar | 90 gr |
| Eggs | 2 |
| Gelatine | 8 gr |
| Vanilla or caramel or other extract | 1 tsp |
| Whipped cream | 500 ml |
How to make the Bavarian cream
To make the Bavarian cream, first of all beat 500 ml of whipped cream and set it aside. If you are using gelatin powder, add a little water to soak. If you are using gelatin sheets, put them into cold water with ice cubes to soften them.
Then, add the milk, sour cream and 1/3 of the sugar (30 gr) into a saucepan. Beat the remaining sugar with the eggs with a hand whisk. Once the liquids have come to a boil, add a teaspoon to the eggs and stir to heat them. Then return the egg mixture to the saucepan and stir with a spatula. The mixture will be ready as soon as it reaches 85°C. If you don’t have a thermometer, one way to control it is to drag your finger on the spatula. If the mixture leaves a trace, then it is ready!
Remove from the heat and add the gelatin. Stir well to dissolve, pour the cream into a pan and place it into the freezer for the temperature of the cream to quickly drop. Once it reaches room temperature, mix with the whipped cream that you had prepared and pour the Bavarian cream into your mould. Refrigerate the dessert for several hours to stabilize the cream.
Happy birthday Giorgos and happy creations everyone!
Eat Dessert First Greece 
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