I made 1½ batches of choux pastry again last night. I tried to break the myth of not opening the oven door.
Ok… let’s start with the pastry first. The ingredient that I change from my original recipe was the quantity of egg. I reduced the quantity to make it thicker because my aim is still to create the crispy shell but not hard as being over baked. I still have not got the texture but I think this has something to do with the ingredients.
During the baking time, I opened the oven door after baking the pastry for 15 minutes. Just happened, my oven decided to jump up at temperature to 250oC instead of 230oC so I had to reduce the setting. Then, I opened again the oven door after 10 minutes at 200oC. I kept on baking the shells until it is done and leave it for another 5 minutes to dry the crust. From my observation, as long as the shell has set and dry, there should be any problem with the deflating pastry.
Just ignore the mini ball on the top of the right shell. I baked the right shell with a more controlled temperature giving a softer crust and more uncooked pastry inside the shell. Thus, it was slightly deflated after coming out of the oven. I guess it was because the first one (on the left) was baked on higher temperature and the shell would be harder. Thus, it can hold the shape.
I’ll try again next time with more control in the temperature and see how the outcome is. There is another thing that I’d like to try with the choux pastry. Just wait for my next post.
