Ingredients
Choux Pastry 95g Milk 95g Water 1/4 Tsp Salt 3/4 Tsp Sugar 113g Plain Flour 165g (Roughly 3) Eggs 70g Butter
Method Preheat your oven to 220°c Add the milk, water, butter, salt, sugar into a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add the flour to the liquid in one go and use a wooden spoon to combine everything together. Cook and mix for a few minutes to cook the flour and till the dough has all come together into a ball. Turn the heat off and let the dough cool for a few minutes, it should be around 50°c. Whisk in the eggs a little at a time and use the wooden spoon to make sure it's all combined. The mixture should be a sticky and a glossy consistency. Pipe (or spoon) your mixture onto a lined tray, leaving about 4 cms between each one. Wet your fingers and press down on any peaks, this will give you a perfect smooth top. Put the tray into the oven and cook for 15 minutes, then turn your oven down to 180°c and cook for a further 20 minutes. Timing will all depend on the size of your pastries, if you find they are getting to dark and they have crisped up enough you can remove them early. Remove the pastries from the oven and either poke a hole (the same size as the piping tip you'll be using for the cream) into the bottoms of the pastry of you can cut them in half lengthways. Put them back on the tray upside down and then back into the oven, which should be off.
Leave the door a little open and let them dry out while the oven cools, this will make sure you get a crispy shell.
Vanilla Custard
500ml Full Cream Milk 4 Egg Yolks 1 tsp Vanilla 50g Flour 70g Sugar Peel of a whole lemon *For a Chocolate version add 2.5 tbsp of good quality cocoa powder Method
Heat the milk and lemon peels in a saucepan. In a separate bowl whisk the yolks, sugar, vanilla, (cocoa) together then add the flour and mix until smooth. Add the milk little by little and whisk to temper the egg mixture.
Put the mixture back into the saucepan and cook on a lowish heat till thickened, keep stirring as it won’t take long, less than 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the rinds and if you want a stronger lemon flavour grate in some fresh zest.
If there are little bits in your custard you can strain it through a fine sieve. Let it cool in the fridge with some cling film on top of the custard to stop it from getting a skin.
Give the custard a final whisk to make sure its smooth.
Pipe the custard into your cooled pastry and dust them with icing sugar or you can dip the tops in a melted chocolate glaze. To make it just melt together 50g of cooking chocolate with about a tablespoon of butter. Enjoy x
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