Simply French: Chouquettes

The other day I turned on the Cooking Channel and watched a re-run of The Little Paris Kitchen: Cooking with Rachel Khoo. I have to say, this has become one of my favorite cooking shows. What’s not to love…Paris, French cuisine with a twist, food and of course, Rachel! Ah, j’adore Paris.

One of the pastries she was baking was the chouquette. Made from choux pastry and sprinkled with powdered sugar, pearl sugar, chocolate chips, or sometimes even filled with custard, it is simply divine. Watching Rachel make the chouquettes reminded me of the time I spent in Paris during my study abroad. Each morning, the smell of freshly baked pastries, wafting through the cobblestone streets would entice me to walk into the nearest patisserie and order a dozen chouquettes. Warm, delicious, and mmmhmmm delicious, they melted right in your mouth!

That little reminiscence decided it; I had to make them myself! Bringing a little bit of France back into my kitchen.

The recipe was fairly simple; I converted it to US measurements, and since I couldn’t find the nibbed sugar she used as a topping, I just used icing sugar & chocolate chips to sweeten the pastry. Recipe adapted from The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo

For the chouquettes, you’ll need:

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 stick of butter, cubed
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
• 4 eggs
• Icing sugar aka Confectioners sugar
• Chocolate chips
  

Start by pre-heating the oven to 350F.

Add the water, milk and butter to a pan. Melt the cubed butter over high heat. Once melted, turn to low heat, and add all the flour in to the pan.

Beat the mixture till it separates from the sides of the pan and forms a dough. You definitely have to do some mixing, so be prepared for an arm workout!!

Take it off the heat and continue beating it to let it cool down enough to touch before the next step. The reason you do this is because you don’t want the eggs to scramble when you add them to the dough…there will be no scrambling of eggs in this kitchen! 

Once the dough is cool enough, add one egg at a time and beat into dough. You will end up with a smooth, yet sticky batter.

Now comes the fun, messy part (at least for me!). Add the dough to the pastry bag.

Pipe small balls of batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. The most challenging part of this recipe for me, believe it or not, was scooping the dough into the pastry bag while trying not to make a mess and get the batter everywhere.

Top with icing sugar. No one said they had to be perfect, right?!  I added icing sugar to all of them.

Top some, or all with chocolate chips. The choice is yours, really!

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they are crispy and golden. Voilà, baked chouquettes! Delicieux. Truth be told, I may have sprinkled some more icing sugar over these babies before I ate them. I recommend eating them hot, fresh out the oven.

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