Religieuse - fun with pâte à choux

Steve LOVES anything made with choux paste, and coffee religieuse (French for nun) is at the top of his list. He’s been asking me to make these for awhile now, and what better time than during the down days of January as we catch our collective breaths and ease into 2022.

Pâte à choux takes me back to Le Cordon Bleu school days and my stage at Pascal Pinaud’s in Paris’ 5th arr. (15 years ago this month!!). My task each morning was to fill and garnish the èclairs and religieuses for the day. As a matter of fact, the job I was given that very first morning oh so long ago was to make a big batch of traditional crème pâtissière (and make it I did!). Yes, I can do this!!

Chocolate and coffee crème pat (in Brit speak) are de rigueur for the fillings, with fondant of each flavor used to garnish. In recent years dedicated choux shops have popped up in and around Paris with all manner of flavors available.

Even though fondant is typically used to cap the choux buns, I felt no joy when working with the stuff and have avoided it ever since. I choose to use a lovely ganache instead when dressing up my ladies. The collar consists of buttercream piped in a ruffle fashion, another morning job for which I was often chided when not piping perfectly. Looks like I still have a ways to go on the perfect ruffle. Live and learn. BTW - you’ll see all manner of ruffles if you search the internet for religieuse. Lots of variations.

For the filling I used my base crème pâtissière recipe. Since I planned to make just a few religieuse, I divided out 200 g of the warm cream and blended in 30 g of chopped milk chocolate and some coffee extract to taste to go the mocha route.

Let’s do a quick run through of the choux making process. Here’s the recipe - I’ll highlight what I feel are the important things to notice through the steps.

Have your flour and eggs ready in separate bowls. Place the milk/water/butter/sugar/salt in a medium saucepan on low heat. You want the butter completed melted before you turn the heat up.

Up the heat to medium high and bring it to a boil. Have the flour at the ready.

Remove from the heat and dump the flour in all at once, stirring quickly to incorporate. It will look kind of clumpy at first like rough mashed potatoes.

Move it back onto the heat and stir vigorously to release some steam and dry it out for a minute or two. Look for the paste to start forming a smoother ball and there will be a light coating on the pan bottom.

Transfer the paste to the bowl of a stand mixer and let it sit a minute to release some more steam. With the paddle attachment on low add the first egg and blend on medium to incorporate completely. It will look gloppy and will seem like it doesn’t want to come together. Don’t worry.

Note: you can blend the eggs in by hand with a sturdy wooden or silicone spoon - you just have to have enough elbow grease to bring it together!

As you add each egg and blend it in, the paste will become more uniform and smooth. The base recipe I use calls for four large eggs. Here’s the paste after three eggs have been added.

Before I proceed I assess by checking the mixture. It should hold, not tear, and start ribboning down as you lift the paddle and let it hang in a “v”. Not quite ready.

I break up the last egg and add about half, blending and reassessing. I don’t consider myself superstitious but it usually works out for me that about 3/4 of the last egg is just right to call it good. Here’s the “v’ coming off the paddle. Notice the paste has more of a smooth, luscious looking sheen too.

Time to pipe! I pulled out a couple of round cutters to help me eyeball what size I wanted my heads and bodies. I forgot to include my trusty ruler in the shot, but in the image below I’m using a quarter sheet pan which measures 8x12”. That gives you some scale. I used a round tip for the bodies and a star tip, just because, for the heads (which you can sort of appreciate in the final analysis, but a round tip is just fine).

Here they are all baked and cooled. I had an extra head which I filled with a bit of mocha cream and ate. Gotta test the product.

Match the heads and bodies and shave enough top off the bodies to give a flat surface on which to perch the head.

When ready for the filling portion of the program, I give the chilled cream a good smoothing out in the mixer with the paddle or in a bowl with a spatula, then fold in a dollop of whipped cream to lighten it. I learned early on that Parisians are none too happy if their choux aren’t properly filled. There has to be a certain heft to show that the job is done well.

I have a basic one to one dark chocolate ganache on hand for dipping (once made, let it cool a bit so it doesn’t run down the sides). Fill first, dip second.

Poke holes in the bottoms of the heads and bodies then pipe in your cream. As you hold the choux with your non-piping hand, you’ll appreciate the heft as you fill. Fill until some cream starts to ooze out, a sign that you’ve filled adequately. You can scrape off the excess and have a snack.

Set the buns upright and dip both bodies and heads in ganache to give a nice cap. Set the heads on the bodies - the ganache will hold them together.

Once assembly is complete, I usually hold them in the fridge until I’m ready to do the collar. I used sea salt caramel Swiss meringue buttercream for my ruffles, piping with a small star tip.

I think of these nuns as roly-poly with a mock turtleneck look.

As you might imagine, Steve was a happy camper. Filled choux will keep well in the fridge for a couple of days to give you some time to savor the treats.

Here’s a cross section - you can see they are chock full of cream. The Parisians would be happy.

Coming soon! More choux fun with Paris Brest.

Stay warm and stay healthy. Ciao for now.