Choux pastry has been on the dessert scene since Medieval times; one of many French pastries that have transcended shores and cultural borders through simple appeal. Choux pastry is unique in it's double-cook method; one must first cook the dough on the stove top, which is then itself baked. By cooking the flour with water and butter, the gluten proteins become tenderised, allowing the dough to be flexible. Adding eggs gives richness, but also more proteins for structural integrity and loosening the dough to allow air to expand (thank you Harold McGee). The steam from all the moisture incorporated into the dough puffs up the pastry during the bake, and eventually the pastry cooks and crisps. The crispness of freshly baked choux pastry is glorious; light and airy with a puffed countenance further more pronounced by inner creamy, cloud-like whipped fillings. Classically, the most universally known cream puff is the profiterole, filled with whipped cream and topped with chocolate - an irresistible contrasting combination by way of texture (crisp-velvety-crunchy) and taste (buttery-creamy-sharp).
However, if such an image of a profiterole is a layman's taste, then one with craquelin is surely that of the refined gastro-diner. Craquelin is essentially a high butter, high sugar dough, that when baked produces a cracked sugary crust. This serves as an alternative topping to the usual chocolate topping for profiteroles, and most excitingly, can be flavoured and coloured to imagination's whim. Not only this, but the craquelin tempers the expansion of the choux pastry; allowing for a more rounded, controlled puff giving a more elegant appearance. Striking the balance between craquelin and choux is important though; too thick of the former could stifle the puff and/or cause the profiterole to collapse.
After discovering that the crust seen on many patisserie profiteroles was a thing called craquelin, I needed to try it. I decided to incorporate berries and matcha flavours into the craquelin (with the added bonus of them being a natural source of food colouring). To complement this, I made white and dark chocolate creams, respectively, so that not only did the flavours work well within one profiterole, but the two different types gave stark contrasts between sweet summer fare and dark, adult bittersweetness. Note that the creams take a long time to chill, so plan ahead accordingly.
Makes ~3 large baking trays.
For the choux pastry:
For the chocolate creams:
- 30 g Dark chocolate (55-85%)
- 30 g White chocolate
- 250 ml Single cream
For the craquelin crust:
- 65 g Butter, softened
- 100 g Light brown sugar
- 2 x 50 g Plain flour, sifted
- 25 g Freeze-dried strawberries
- 25 g Freeze-dried raspberries
- 2 tbsp Matcha powder
For the choux pastry:
- 65 g Plain flour, sifted
- 50 g Butter
- 120 ml Water
- Pinch of salt
- 2 Eggs, beaten
- To make the chocolate creams, melt the chocolates in separate medium bowls until just melted, either in the microwave or over a bain marie. Heat half the cream until roughly the same temperature as the chocolate and add 75 ml to the melted white chocolate, 75 ml cream to the melted dark chocolate. Mix each until fully combined, then add the rest of the cream to both chocolate mixtures. Finally, use a handblender on each chocolate cream to ensure they are fully mixed, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.
- Next, to make the craquelin, first take the freeze-dried berries and blend them together into a powder using a food processor. Mix one batch of flour with this berry powder, and the other with the matcha powder. Separately, cream the butter and light brown sugar together. Divide this mixture in two before adding the berry flour to one and the matcha flour to the other. Mix until one forms a smooth purple dough, and the other a green dough. Between two sheets of baking paper, roll out each dough until half a centimeter thick. Place both sheets of dough on trays and place in the freezer.
- Preheat the oven to 200 °C/400 F/Gas mark 6.
- Now onto the profiteroles. Heat the water and butter in a medium saucepan over low-medium heat until the butter is just melted. Then quickly bring to the boil, immediately remove from the heat and add the flour. Beat together with a wooden spoon until all the flour is incorporated and a dough is formed.
- Placing the saucepan back on the heat, cook the dough while beating until it is smooth and comes clean away from the sides of the saucepan. Turn off the heat, and tip the dough into a shallow dish to cool, spreading it out so that the surface area is greater and it cools faster.
- When the dough is tepid, place back into the saucepan and slowly add the beaten eggs, bit by bit, beating the dough between each addition. You've added enough eggs when the dough falls when gently shaken off a wooden spoon (you might not use all the egg).
- At this stage, spoon the choux mix into a piping bag (or plastic sandwich bag with the corner cut off). Pipe 2 cm diameter circles on lined or greased baking trays.
- Take out the craquelin from the freezer and using a cutter, cut discs from each sheet, roughly the same size as the piped dough. Perch these discs on top of each piped choux pastry; half with berry discs and half with matcha.
- Sprinkle water on the trays around the piped choux (but don't get the dough wet) and bake for 15 min. Then, without opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 170 °C/375 F/Gas mark 3 and bake for another 10 min, or until crispy and golden brown.
- Remove the profiteroles from the oven and using a knife or skewer, make a small hole at the bottom of each profiterole to allow steam to escape. Bake again for a further 3 min, after which you can leave to cool on a wire rack.
- When ready to fill the profiteroles, make the holes on the bottom big enough to pipe into. Take your chocolate creams and whisk them separately with an electric whisk until whipped and holding their shape. Spoon into a piping bag (or plastic sandwich bag with the corner cut off) and pipe white chocolate cream into the berry craquelin profiteroles, and pipe dark chocolate cream into the matcha flavoured ones.
________________________________________
Temper, when used in the context of emotions, the meaning is usually one of flaring anger, rambunctiousness and roiling rage. However, one could perhaps also use it to refer to an action; the curbing and balancing of emotions. Much like the craquelin tempers the puffed rise of choux, our feelings temper each other through wars waged on the emotive battlefield; cannons roaring exultations of Pride, plumes of Rage-fire, sing-song trumpets of Joy, wisps of Despair carried by dark winds. When the earth shakes and our cores rock, our instincts push forward one of such marching factions - whether it be to fight or flight, rage or retreat. In the midst of such chaos and exuberant emotion, sometimes we must harness such raw power and channel it into a spear of willpower.
How often does Fear hold us in its vice; propelled into withering rejection of the cause, a need to flee by any means possible? Fear masks itself with veils of rationality, pulling visages to justify a knee-jerk reaction. Anger, easily understood to potentially explode in an inferno; Sadness, wallowing in itself like an ouroboros; Happiness can spiral uncontrollably into reckless abandon beyond wellbeing.
Though we must not quell all emotions (for they always hold a truth of our own authentic impression of the cause), we must remember to summon other inclinations lest we fall overtly into ourselves. Tempering our emotions to respond without overreaction leads to striving forward, constructively and moderately, and taking the time to reflect on the situation as well as the consequences. Hear and listen to your feelings, but do not singularly fall headlong into them.