Holly Herrick - The French Cook: Cream Puffs & Eclairs

The French Cook

Cream Puffs & clairs

Holly Herrick

Photographs by Alexandra DeFurio

The French Cook

Cream Puffs & clairs

Digital Edition 1.0

Text 2013 Holly Herrick

Photographs 2013 Alexandra DeFurio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.

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ISBN: 978-1-4236-3244-3

To all French chefs everywhere, including my chefs and mentors at Le Cordon Bleu, especially Jean Claude Boucheret. Merci a vous! You all make the world a more beautiful and delicious place.

As a new bride in the 1990s, uprooted from New York to another state, I had time to indulge my interest in cooking, long-held since childhood and cooking with my nanna. Relying very heavily on The Way to Cook, by Julia Child, which had been a wedding present, I immersed myself into the wonderful world of (mostly) classical French cooking. I was quickly hooked, simmering, baking, saucing and roasting my way towards all kinds of new foods and pleasures.

The cooking itch soon became a passion, and thats just about when all of the really lucky confluences started happening. I decided to put my college journalism major to work not in general writing, but in food writing in particular. My mother-in-law, a marvelous cook and an ardent gourmand, went along with my husband and me to my first-ever food and wine festival in Aspen, Colorado. It was there that I saw Julia Child, my childhood idol, performing a demonstration in which she tackled a rather large steamed lobster with a huge mallet. I summoned the nerve to approach Julia and ask what she thought I should do to get qualified as a food writer. Her graceful answer was actually more of a question: Can you get to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris?

I practically squealed oui! As good fortune would have it, my husband supported me on this quest. Many years of having studied French and functioning as a sort of uninitiated Francophile practically carried me over the ocean to Paris. Upon landing, a sense of clarity and purpose hit me in a flash, even as I saw the little rabbits scurrying around the fields surrounding Charles de Gaulle airport. I was home, and it felt delicieux.

Since then, Ive worked in many kitchens and traveled all over the world, but nothing has touched me like my French experience.

Its an honor to be the author of this second volume in The French Cook series.

Mon petit choux (my little cabbage) is a common term of endearment in France, not unlike my darling or my dear in English. Similarly, choux pastry is a much beloved and ultra-versatile pastry that is truly unlike any other. Where most pastriessuch as a short pastry used in tartsrely on minimal gluten activation to maximize crispiness and tenderness, choux pastry likes to get beat up a bit with a wooden spoon. This actually maximizes gluten and helps create the light, airy, moist interior and crispy exterior crunch for which choux is so celebrated.

Like many culinary wonders and other French classics such as the tarte tatin , choux is thought to have originated as something of a mistake. The popular theory is that an errant pastry chef whipped up a pastry cream (usually a sweet pastry filling), forgot to add the sugar, and baked it, yielding something very similar to what we now know as choux.

Indeed, barring the sugar, the ingredients in a and choux pastry are quite similar. Choux begins by beating flour into warm water and melted butter to form a thick white dough. Eggs are then added gradually until a glossy, smooth, beautiful pastry dough is formed. The gluten in the flour provides the structure, the butter gives it flavor and depth, and the eggs encourage the glorious lift and puff of the choux.

Its not a complicated pastry. In fact, at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where I first prepared it, choux was part of the beginning cuisine curriculum. Well go into more detail about preparing the pastry itself in The Art of Making Choux Pastry chapter, but for now, what matters is to contemplate the virtually endless possibilities for choux pastry. Because the slightly nutty, buttery flavor is neutral, the puffy shapes so pretty and appealing, and the texture both elegant and homey, choux can become the casing for many wonderful sweet or savory treats of all shapes and sizes.

Pte choux blended with grated cheese and possibly some fresh herbs becomes a warm, inviting cheese puff to have with a sip of Champagne before dinner. Or, filled with ham and cheese, the same puff can become a satisfying, elegant sandwich for lunch or to serve at cocktail parties. You can fill choux pastries with warm sauted onions topped with cheese, a blend of cheese and smoked salmon and caviar, or roast beef and a horseradish creamanything goes! Tout est possible (the sky is the limit). But dont stop there. Add a bit of sugar to the flour and you have a slightly sweetened choux, the base for myriad sweet concoctions such as clairs, St. Honor, croquembouche, cream puffs and more filled with glorious butter creams, whipped creams, puddings, and ice creams paired with sauces and glazes of infinite varieties. Fried choux becomes a beignet , or French doughnut.

This book is divided into two parts: savory and sweet. Like most meals, it begins with the savory chapter and ends with the sweet desserts chapter. Along the way, there will be all kinds of tips and beautiful photography to help make your choux adventure as enjoyable and delicious as can be.

Bon appetit!

Before you get started, it is very important and liberating to breathe deeply and remember that pte choux is an extremely easy, forgiving and flexible pastry. The simplicity begins with the ingredients: water, salt, (a little sugar for sweet pastry), butter, flour and eggs. The water can come straight from the tap. I recommend using kosher salt or sea salt because of its nonchemical flavor, but any will do if its what you have on hand. Butter should be unsalted and cool for easier handling, as it is cut into cubes before being added to the water.

The type of flour to use is something of a debate in pastry circles and it all goes back to the protein content. Remember, choux likes high gluten content, and the higher the protein content of the flour, the higher the gluten content of the pastry. For this book, I tested many combinations of flours and got the best results using equal parts bread flour (about 14 to 16 percent protein) and all-purpose flour (about 10 to 12 percent protein), so thats what I suggest in the master recipes, both ). However, if you have only one or the other flour at home on the day you decide to make choux, you should have good results using either, so dont fret.