Check 'em out!
They look great, taste great, and are beautifully hollow. Just love it.
Here's the recipe:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
*1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. water
*1/2 cup whole milk
*4 ounces butter (1 stick) cut into pieces
*2 Tbsp. sweetened condensed milk
*1/2 tsp. salt
Put all above ingredients into saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil.
*1 cup AP flour
Add the flour all at once to the boiling mixture. Stir with wooden spoon or heatproof spatula until a smooth mass forms. Keep cooking and stirring it around over moderate heat to dry out the dough as much as possible, about 4-5 minutes.
Transfer dough to mixing bowl. With the paddle attachment, beat at medium speed to release steam and cool a bit for one minute.
*4 large eggs
*1 large egg yolk
At low speed, beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated between additions.
The dough should look smooth and glossy. When you lift up some of the dough with a spatula
it should take 5-7 seconds to fall back into the bowl. If it doesn't fall back into the bowl at all,
you need more eggs. I found that I needed 2 more when I did this recipe. Eggs, in pate choux
are ALWAYS variable. The above is only a guide. When I need to add additional eggs, I add the yolk first and check the dough. If I still need more, I add the white, and so forth. Sometimes one whole egg can be too much. The amount of eggs to add, is usually the trickiest part to pate choux.
When your dough is ready, fill a pastry bag with a plain tip and pipe out as desired. Beat one egg yolk with 2 Tbsp. water to make an egg wash. Egg wash the choux, and sprinkle with a little coarse salt if desired. Put in pre-heated 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, then turn oven down to 350 to continue baking for about 20 minutes more.
When done, the puffs will be deep golden brown, and nearly weightless. Do not remove from oven too soon, or they will collapse! A lot of people have the tendency to do this.
