Choux Pastry (and Doughnut Dough)

We like a bit of continuity in this esteemed column. On Wednesday, doughnuts. So when the editorial team convened to decide on today's Tom Cooks! there was only one possible candidate, namely choux pastry.

Why? Well, I really don't care for doughnuts much and, to be fair, choux did get a couple of mentions on Wednesday. Today is another recipe from the lovely Sarah Mellersh, sometime of Let's Cook Scotland. Regular readers will know that I credit her for my wide ranging powers of culinary BS, some of it containing a grain or two of truth. When I went on Sarah's two week course ten years ago now, there were many techniques of which I was ignorant. Others, such as today's, were things I'd tried to do, failed miserably, and gone in the huff about.

My peers were appalled. Choux pastry is easy peasy, they said. Today Sarah and I tell you how. Note that this is only how to make the pastry. For ideas on what to do with it, you'll have to come back next week.

Choux Pastry Dough

Ingredients (this will make 12 x 10cm eclairs)

65g strong white flour; 120ml water; 50g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing; 2 eggs, beaten; pinch of salt.

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Put the water in the pan with the butter and salt and heat, gently at this stage, until the butter has completely melted. Then, and only then, bring to the boil, then chuck in the flour in one go. Remove from the heat and beat with a wooden spoon. Sarah's polite recipe says furiously. Others say, beat to b*****y. You get the picture.

Sarah warns that it will look messy at first but will soon come together to form a smooth heavy dough. Put the pan back on a low heat and continue to beat for about a minute. Just as you ensure you cook the roux for a white sauce, so you are slightly cooking your dough here. It should come away from the sides of the pan and make a smooth, glossy ball. Tip the dough into a large mixing bowl and leave to cool slightly  - until tepid.

Gradually beat your (already beaten) eggs into the dough. You can use a mixer, but elbow grease does it for me. As with cakes, make sure just to add bit by bit. Once again, the beating is important. You may not need all the egg, says Sarah. Depends how big they are. I seem to recall that her default size is medium. The dough should be very shiny and paste-like and fall from a spoon when lightly shaken.

What next? See you in a week's time.

As you can imagine, rigorous preparation goes into each and every article which appears in this  prestigious blog; however, you may be unaware of the focus groups and vox pop samples which are also involved. There were howls of protest at the omission of doughnut dough. For once, I yield to pressure.

Doughnut Dough (this will make about 20 x 50g doughnuts)

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour; 60 g caster sugar; 150ml water; 7g fast action yeast; 4 eggs; 2tsp salt; 125g softened butter (preferably unsalted).

When we get to cooking them next week, you'll need a lot of veg oil (approx 2 litres) and plenty more caster sugar for dusting them. If you want to go stuffing them, you're on your own.

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Set up your food mixer with the dough hook attachment. Put all of the ingredients, apart from the butter, into the bowl and mix for about 8 - 10 minutes. Start slowly, then up the speed to medium. The dough should start to come away from the side of the bowl of its own free will. Switch off the mixer. The dough will need a couple of minutes' rest, and so will you. Start up again at medium and start adding the butter in about five or six batches. When it's all incorporated, whizz at high speed for about 5 minutes. Your dough should be smooth, glossy and very elastic.

Cover the bowl and leave until the dough has doubled in size. That will take at least two hours, depending on temperature. You don't need to find a particularly warm place - a slow prove is always good - but remember that dough hates being in a draft. Once the dough has risen, knock it back, still in the bowl, cover again and leave overnight in the fridge.

There. Happy now? See you next week.