Choux Pastry - Retro Food For Modern Times

Happy Easter everyone! I hope the bunny brought you all the chocolate eggs you wanted. I am also bringing the Easter classics of buns and eggs but in savoury form with some choux buns with truffled mushrooms and quail eggs. I wanted to use up the leftover quail eggs from the Nevilled Eggs. A quick search of my recipe spreadsheet led me to a beautiful book called Food Fashion Friends Fleur Wood. She is a designer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Coming from a former fashion designer the book is very glamorous so I had high hopes for this recipe!

(And yes, I have a recipe spreadsheet. And yes, I know that makes me the very opposite of the glamorous chic in the book!)

It turned out that I had a few more quail eggs than required for the choux buns so I also made one of Jamie Oliver’s dipping salts for quail eggs. He has three recipes, all of which sound delicious but I chose one with smoked paprika and cayenne.

Fleur Wood’s recipe has black caviar as an additional garnish for her eggs. I did not have any of this so I omitted it but I’m sure the buns would have been delicious with it. A little sprinkle of some parsley or chives might have been nice too.

The one thing that for me, did not work in this recipe were the quail’s eggs. They didn’t bring anything to the dish which was a bit disappointing as I was looking for something in which they would shine. The mushroom filling was so delicious that I would have been happy with just them or maybe a bit of goat’s or cream cheese added. Even in the photo from the book, the eggs look a little…out of place. Maybe Fleur was also trying to use up some quail eggs?

AAA Choux Buns — Picture via Food Fashion Friends

The choux buns worked like a dream which I was pleased about! So, whilst I was a bit disappointed that the eggs didn’t shine, the mushroom filling and the buns definitely put this in the “make again” territory. The Jamie Oliver dipping eggs were also a nice little bonus!

The Recipe – Mushrooms & Quail Egg Choux Buns

Incidentally, I had never cooked quail’s eggs before the Nevilled eggs. So, I had never realised quite how beautiful I would find their speckly outsides:

Or that they would have a gorgeous blue inside!

I am off to eat more eggs, of the chocolate variety! Have a great week!

You might think that five and a bit years into this that I would cease to be surprised. Both when things go awry and when by some stroke of mad luck things work out just as they should. Such was the case with the Profiteroles I made on the weekend from the Very Special Occasions Chapter of The A- Z of Cooking (1977). When the profiteroles came out of the oven looking like, well, profiteroles, there were whoops of joy, squeals of excitement and a bit of spontaneous kitchen dancing!

Yep, in this house, this:

Equals This:

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. First. Hello V. And whilst we’re on the subject let’s’ all note the name of the chapter. Not just Special Occasions. Very Special Occasions. Requiring very special dancing apparently. And also requiring several goes at making something that was worthy of posting. After all, it’s a very special occasion.

First up there was a go at Carpetbag Steak. Now, if you lookup Carpetbag Steak anywhere on the interwebs, you will more than likely read that it is a famous Australian recipe. I’ve lived here virtually all my life and I have never head of it. However, I really liked the idea of steak and oysters. I made the recipe and it looked and tasted meh.

Then I made a Beef Stroganoff. Tasted good. Looked terrible in all the photos. I think it’s that thing that Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers told me about where brown food just doesn’t photo well. This was about the best…

So then I made Carpetbag Steak v2. A modern recipe this time. Still looked and tasted meh.

I was left with a choice. Champagne and Orange Juice. Or Profiteroles. And believe me . You came so close to having Champagne and Orange juice as your very special occasion meal. Because this is what happens inside my head whenever pastry is mentioned:

The profiteroles only happened because the very special occasion was a long weekend due to the Football Grand Final being the next day. I know right. Who has a holiday BEFORE the big day?

“It’s the dumbest reason for a holiday ever” I said.

“Come to work then” said my boss.

“It’s the best holiday ever. Better even than Jesus being born. Or dying.”

So anyway, on the holiday for best/ worst reason ever I got a little bored in the evening and thought that I would have a flick through The A-Z of Cooking, to plan V-Z. The profiterole recipe caught my eye and I realised that I had every ingredient. And a whole heap of bravado due to being about 3/4 of a bottle of a wine in.

Don’t judge. That produced these. Light as air, melt in the mouth, boozy cream filled and shiny chocolately pastry balls of deliciousness,

The basis for profiteroles, and the reason for my hissy fit is pastry. Choux pastry to be exact. I have made choux pastry exactly once before. For a recipe called Cherry Fritters from The A-Z of Cooking. Don’t bother searching the archives for them. They were a total disaster and I didn’t post them.

But choux starts with a roux…actually no. According to The A-Z of Cooking choux pastry starts with 63g of flour. Yep. 63. Not 60. Not 65. 63. And seeing as this was a very special occasion, 63g of flour it was.

This became this:

Which became these. I couldn’t find a piping bag and my piping skills are non-existent so I just blobbed spoonfuls of the pastry onto the tray. Also, I wasn’t really expecting this to work. And need I remind you about that bottle of wine that was now 5/6’s gone?

Well, slap my arse and call me Charlie if those funny looking blobs didn’t turn into these. They’re shall we say “rustic” but on a scale of one to ten of being recognizable as profiteroles, they have to be at least an eight.

So then fill and ice and sprinkle and you get these: (even more profiteroley).

Here’s the recipe direct from The A-Z of Cooking:

I tweaked the recipe by swapping out the rum for Amaretto and adding some sprinkles.

Make, eat, enjoy, do a little dance of sheer pleasure.

And have a great week!

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Retro Food For Modern Times

Tag: Choux Pastry

Mushrooms & Quail Egg Choux Buns

The Recipe – Mushrooms & Quail Egg Choux Buns

Profiteroles For Very Special Occasions