PATE A CHOUX (CREAM PUFF PASTRY)

Steps:

• Place a bowl on your mixer and fit the paddle attachment to it.
• Put your eggs next to the mixer.
• Mix the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt in a 2-quart saucepan.
• Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
• Stirring constantly, add the flour all at once, and stir quickly and without stopping until the flour is thoroughly incorporated.
• Then continue to cook and stir for another 45 seconds, or until the dough comes into a ball and a light film of paste coats the bottom of the pan.
• Immediately scrape the dough into the bowl of your mixer, and turn the mixer on low speed.
• Let it mix for a minute or two - the first few turns of the paddle will put up a cloud of steam.
• That's fine.
• Just let it mix until no more steam is coming off the dough.
• Then add the first egg, letting it mix in fully before adding the next one.
• Keep the mixer on low speed - you don't want to incorporate too much air into the paste.
• Scrape down the bowl every 2nd egg just to make sure everything is mixing together.
• Before adding the 6th egg, stop the mixer and check the consistency of the dough.
• You will know it is perfect if, when you lift the paddle, it pulls the dough with it, then the dough breaks away and forms a peak that slowly bends down.
• If the dough is too thick and doesn't form that peak, add the last egg.
• The dough is now ready to be used to make éclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles, or any other recipe calling for choux paste.
• It should be used immediately.
• NOTES FOR MAKING CHOUX PASTE SUCCESSFULLY: The liquid must be heated to a full boil.
• Add the flour all at once and stir madly until every last speck of flour is incorporated, then keep cooking and stirring some more - it's this last bit of cooking that will take the raw taste out of the flour; you'll know you are ready to quit when the dough forms a ball around your wooden spoon and the bottom of the pan is covered with a light film of paste.
• Stop mixing when you still have one egg left to add and inspect the dough.
• Depending on the condition of the flour, the room, or the moods of the pastry gods, the dough may or may not need the last egg.
• The dough is finished when you lift the paddle and it pulls up some dough that then detaches and forms a slowly bending peak - if you don't get a peak, add another egg.
• And relax.
• Even if you can't decide what to do, add the egg - you will still get a good puff.
• Use the paste while it is warm.
• It cannot be kept.
• Unfilled puffs or éclairs can be well wrapped and frozen for a few weeks.