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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

The Lady Scientists who lunch on profiteroles - Choux pastry







I have  job as a struggling research student . I work in agricultural research and you would think  that this would be a male dominated environment  , full of burly farmer and Ag researchers , but not so . The proportion to female to male student is about 4 to 1 .
As  a result the social activities  can veer off to those more traditionally associated with women.
One of these is the Wentworth Miller Baking Society( WMB soc)  , as a founding member we like to think of ourselves  as a guerrilla like splinter group modeled on the Irish country Woman Association , or the Woman's Institute. We are   an umbrella society with remits that cover  , baking , gossiping , wine drinking , politics , metaphysics , world economic reform  etc etc etc . 
When the WMB Soc meet they require sustenance for all this discussion , scheming and gossiping therefore it was decided by committee that choux pastry in the form of profiteroles would be the order of day .

Choux pastry is a bit of a marvel , it only requires four  ingredients flour , eggs, butter and water  and a lot of muscle to beat it into submission . Fortunately one of the member of the WMB soc is a weight lifter , so she has adequate strength  for this job . You can spoon the mixture out or if a more elegant bun is required  pipe them . The recipe used here was based on Mary Berry's from Her Baking Bible

Choux pastry

Ingredients

  • 100g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 75g stork margarine
  • 3 eggs at room temperature, beaten

  • Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius and grease and line to baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
  • Weight out the flour on to a sheet of grease proof paper
  • Melt the butter , pinch of salt and a tablespoon of water (15 ml )in  a saucepan over a medium heat until the butter is melted
  • Immediately tip in flour and stir like crazy to incorporated the flour  . It should be a smooth and  heavy dough , this can take about five minutes.
  • Leave the flour , water  and butter paste to cool slightly and then add a tablespoon of beaten egg at a time  . This is where the tough love come in you must beat like a maniac in order to mix the egg into the mixture , hence the weight lifter  , if you do not have one handy , use the electric  hand mixer . keep beating until the mixture become shiny and start to leave the sides of the sauce pan .



  •  Spoon your mixture onto the trays , I used a teaspoon and dolloped them on , or pipe them for a neater finish





  • Bake in the oven  for 15 minutes at 200 c and then open the oven door for 5 seconds and reduce the temperature to 180 for a further 10-15 . I have a  hot spot in my oven so I turned the trays at the ten minute point.
  • Take the buns out of the oven and pierce them with a skewer or a knife to leave the steam out , let them cool compete on  on wire rack before filling.





on the left are the spooned buns and the right are the piped buns . it all depends on how dainty are your guests . I am of the attitude the bigger the bun the better!




 Filling

punnet of raspberries 
300 ml of cream 
icing sugar to taste  


  • Whip the cream to form soft peaks , I had a bottle of rose open so I added a drop to give the cream a little lift .
  • Whizz your punnet of raspberries to a puree  with the stick blender ( if you do not have stick blender you can push the soft fruit through a sieve ) . 
  • If you are fussy you can eliminated the seeds by passing this  through a sieve , in this instance I didn't bother
  • Add the icing sugar to the puree to your taste , I threw in roughly four tablespoon of sugar.
  • Fold your fruit puree into the cream and bobs your uncle  you have just made raspberry Chantilly cream .



  • Spoon the cream into a piping bag and pipe the cream inside the buns , be careful not over fill the buns , you want to leave something to the imagination , so cream bursting out the seams is not the look your looking for . ( if you do not have a piping bag you can open the buns out like a pitta and spoon the cream in )



  • Pile your filled buns up on a plate or cake stand ,alternating with some raspberries .




  • A bit of a  show off drizzle of melted chocolate and icing sugar





  • And serve , feeds six hungry lady scientists


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