French Chouquette Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is Chouquette made of? ›

The making of Chouquettes is in essence the making of a choux pastry – known in French as “Pâte à Choux”. The soft pastry dough is then piped into little mounds on a baking sheet and topped with pearl sugar before baking, to create chouquettes. Basic ingredients for a Pâte à Choux include butter, water, flour and eggs.

Translated to English, chouquettes mean “little bits of (choux) pastry,” which is exactly what they are. The dough used to make these pastry puffs is the same dough that's used to make eclairs and profiteroles.

Chouquettes (pronounced shoo-kets) are French pastry sugar puffs and can also be made into profiteroles (French cream puffs) if you're feeling fancy. It's that magic pâte à choux dough recipe again, the very same one used to make savory Gougères.

First, the dough is too wet and runny. The dough needs enough flour to give it structure to properly rise and hollow out. The solution is to use enough flour so that the dough is thick enough. Second, your cream puffs or choux pastries may not hollow out because the baking temperature is too low to start.

The oven was opened during the first 20 minutes of baking.

As soon as you open the oven door to sneak a peek, all the hot air escapes and the choux can fall flat. Make sure to keep the oven door closed at all times, or at a minimum, during the first 20 minutes of baking.

Churros are made from a choux-based dough that's a little less enriched (not as many eggs) and a little sweeter (thanks to vanilla!) that is piped into hot oil and fried like doughnuts.

A croquembouche, French for “crunch in the mouth”, is a cone-shaped tower of cream puffs bound together by caramel.

The name comes from the French phrase croque en bouche, meaning "[something that] crunches in the mouth."

Simply made of choux pastry made of water (or milk), butter, wheat flour, eggs and salt, the chouquette, short for cabbage with the suffix "ette", was created in the 16th century by the Italian pastry chef Popelini who, while working at the court of Queen Catherine de Medici, imported it to France.

Chouquettes originate from Paris, and can be enjoyed at anytime of the day, typically for breakfast or as an afternoon snack.

Where did Chouquettes come from? ›

As you've guessed, Chouquettes originated in France and are a favourite of Parisiens in particular. Pronounced 'shoo-ket', they are made with choux pastry which forms the base of many a French dessert, such as éclairs, profiteroles and the wedding favourite, croquembouche.

The five faults listed are: mixtures being too soft, pastry not rising and having a solid texture after baking, sinking after removal from the oven, pastry being too thin, and pastry being too thick.

Finally, it is important to not overmix the dough after the eggs are added. Overmixing can make the dough tough.

Chouquettes originate from Paris, and can be enjoyed at anytime of the day, typically for breakfast or as an afternoon snack.

The only ingredients used to make puff pastry are butter, salt, water, and flour — no leavening agents are required.

Choux Pastry can be used in anything from cream puffs, profiteroles, and eclairs to churros, croquembouche, French cruller donuts, choux beignets, and gougères! It only takes about 10 minutes to prepare and the options for filling and shaping are endless.

Rough puff pastry is prepared by incorporating butter or fat in the form of golf-ball size chunks into the dough, instead of the entire slabs used in classic puff pastry. This is followed by sheeting and folding with minimum or no resting time between successive folds.