To Tchaikovsky with Love

It seems I've been late again with catching up with what was keeping people interested in the movies lately. The Oscars have gone and awarded Natalie Portman for her performance in The Black Swan and I'm just about to go 'whoah' over her haunting role, which I've seen only recently on a cable movie channel.

Being mainly a Baroque and Classical period listener, I don't dabble much in the Romantic period save for the monthly depression stage called PMS. Seeing Ms. Portman's movie made me revisit my Tchaikovsky playlist and let his famous swan-themed ballet occupy my ears for almost a month.

This for you, Tchaikovsky... and maybe for you, too, Ms. Portman. Please eat well, you got really thin.

On to the choux~ When I've decided to try my hand at choux pastry, I thought I'd like to make my first batch memorable. So I went with the swan, not just because it is a popular animal shape for the pastry but also because  it was also an elegant dish to behold. Oh,and you also get the bonus of bragging rights. 

Choux à la Crème de Cygne

Following the instructions from master-pastry.com had been a great help in completing this recipe. The author, Keiko, also runs a site called keikos-cake.com. It's best to become a member to get more baking tutorials. There's the free newsletter subscription thing and the other one where you'll actually pay. Since I'm poor and am also too lazy to make a Paypal account, I'm on the newsletter thingy. The members get the whole she-bang, of course. Whether you're on the free train or the VIP cabin, the recipes are really helpful and easily re-executed.

The steps are really easy to follow and there are also pictures and occasional videos that go with the pdf file, so you are assured you'll end your baking adventure with something awesome and edible. Oh, and have I mentioned bragging rights yet? (^_-)d

If you study the recipe, you would find that it's actually easy to make choux a la creme and surprisingly un-tedious to assemble a swan! Though, I must warn you in advance--you'll have a lot of dishes to wash~

Good luck~! \(^_^)~

Ingredients

4 eggs

1-2 egg whites

200 ml milk

80 g. (5 1/3 tbsp) butter, sliced into small cubes

100 g. (18 tbsp) flour, sifted

2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 egg yolks

200 ml milk

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup flour, sifted

2-3 tsp vanilla extract

250 ml all purpose cream or whipping cream

3-4 tbsp icing sugar

2 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

It is best to make the crème pâtissière and crème Chantilly ahead of time so you could chilled them, then whip into a creamy consistency once the choux pastry is baked and cooled.

Crème Pâtissière (Vanilla Custard Cream)

1. In a bowl, whip the egg yolks and the sugar until it turns light yellow.

2. Add the flour while gently whisking the egg-sugar mixture.

3. In a sauce pan, heat the milk until bubbles form on the surface. Remove from heat and pour in a steady stream into the egg mixture while whisking.

4. When the all of the milk is incorporated into the egg mixture, strain this into the sauce pan and cook over medium heat.

5. Whisk the custard cream until it thickens or starts to bubble gently.

6. Remove from heat and whisk until smooth. Have a bowl or tray with ice ready, where you'll cool the custard cream.

7. Transfer the cream from the pan to a bowl. Then, cover the cream with the cling film touching its surface. This prevents the cream from drying out.

8. Once cooled to room temperature, chill this in your fridge.

If there are still ice left from cooling the crème pâtissière, you could still use this for making crème Chantilly.

Crème Chantilly (Vanilla-infused Whipped Cream)

1. Place a mixing bowl over the tray of ice. Squirt a whole 250 ml-pack of all purpose or whipping cream into the bowl, follow with drops of vanilla extract.

2. Whip into creamy, soft peaked consistency while gradually adding the icing sugar.

3. When you reach the soft peaked stage of the whipped cream, gently tap your egg beater or wire whisk into the bowl to remove excess whipped cream and cover the mixture with cling film.

As with the crème pâtissière, chill this in the fridge until the choux pastry is baked, cooled, and sliced for cream puff construction.

Pâte à Choux (Choux Paste)

1. Beat 4 eggs in a bowl, set aside.

2. In a pot or deep sauce pan, pour in the milk and add the butter, sugar, and salt. Simmer under medium heat until the milk is bubbling and the butter has melted.

3. Add all of the flour in one go. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula until it forms a dough ball, or doesn't stick to the sides of the pot/pan:

Photo of the dough taken from keikos-cake.com, 2009-2011.

4. Remove the mixture from heat and gradually add the beaten egg. Pour in an equivalent of one beaten egg into the dough mix and stir until the egg has been incorporated. Repeat process until all four eggs-worth of beaten eggs have been dissolved into the dough.

5. The consistency should be smooth with little bits of lumps and sticky to touch. If you're not satisfied with the consistency, add the egg whites and stir until smooth:

Photo of what the choux paste should look like after adding the eggs.

keikos-cakes.com, 2009-2011.

6. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

7. Have a lined baking pan ready and a clean piping bag. Scoop 3-4 tablespoon-fulls of choux paste into the piping bag. Squeeze the air out of the piping bag and keep the paste compressed by using a clothes pin to clip your piping bag tightly. Use the tip with big circle opening.

8. Place the baking tray into the preheated oven and bake in 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes or they are puffed and lightly browned.

9. Once they are lightly browned, lower the temperature to 170 degrees C and bake for 20 more minutes. When the oven alarm signals you that it's done, do not open the oven door yet. Let the pastry cool down inside the oven. You could only take them out once the oven's surface has also cooled. Be careful with checking the temperature of your oven's surface.

DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR WHILE THE PASTRY IS COOKING. If you open it even once at any stage of the cooking process, you'll have to go back to step 1.

Assembling the Choux à la Crème

1. Slice your choux pastry in half.

2. Spread a spoonful (or two) of the crème pâtissière in one of the halved slices.

3. Add or pipe the crème Chantilly over the previously spread layer.

4. Top with the other half of the pastry.

5. Sprinkle some icing sugar (aka powdered sugar) on top.

TIPS:

If you don't have a piping bag, scoop the choux paste into a zip lock or sandwich bag. Squeeze out the air in the sandwich bag as you would with a piping bag and then cut off the tip of the plastic casing.

You could go wild with these shapes:

a) The long, hotdog-shaped choux paste is used for eclairs.

b) The usual shape for choux a la creme is round (or piped in a spiral manner, like poop).

c) A star-shaped tip could also be used for piping so it could look like a choux version of a meringue.

d) You could drop the choux paste into the baking sheet with a spoon (or two) for a rustic approach.

e) Or, you could have a swan, just like on the photo. Cygne, by the way, is French for 'swan'. Thanks, Google-fu~

If you don't want to make a swan, skip these steps:

To make the swan body, pipe an oblong shape into the baking sheet. Don't fret if it's messy, you could smooth out the shape when you dab water on it before baking.

As seen here:

Photo from keikos-cake.com, 2009-2011.

For the swan neck plus head, start off with a reverse letter 'S':

Another photo from keikos-cake.com, 2009-2011

Then, go back to the starting point of the reverse 'S' and add a small oblong shape with a pointed tip. Again, if it got messy (especially if you're using an improvised piping bag) you could still smooth the lines out with your dampened clean fingers:

Third photo from keikos-cake.com, 2009-2011.

The swan heads are baked in a different way:

Bake them for 17-20 minutes at 170 degrees C or until lightly browned. Cool them in the oven before taking them out and cooling them further to room temperature.

Assembling the Choux à la Crème de Cygne

1. Running the knife horizontally, slice the oval-shaped choux pastry in half.

2. Slice the other half of the pastry vertically to make the swan's wings.

Photo reference for steps 1 and 2 was from the pdf of keikos-cake.com, 2009-2011.

3.Scoop some crème pâtissière into the other half, then top with crème Chantilly (ideally piped with star-shaped tip in a Mont Blanc pattern or fancy, squiggly lines).

4. Gently insert the swan head into the thick layers of custard and whipped cream. Top with the wings on either side.

5. Sprinkle everything with powdered sugar and dig in~

The good old cream puff has a special place in my tummy and my childhood. I don't remember much from when I was four, but I do have recollections of the bakeshop near my pre-school that sold me my first cream puff. It was big, airy, and delightfully not diabetic-friendly. It definitely gave me my first crazy sugar rush~ ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ｱﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ / ＼/ ＼

The shot was different from the natural light feel of my other posts. Aside from not being able to catch the sun when we finally finished assembling this, Miho and I also started baking after lunch, 'round 12:30 pm and baking a batch could take an hour (we had three batches).

With Mum and Dad on the talks of buying a legit oven, I will definitely re-do this to get a better food shot. But wouldn't you agree that the dark background accentuates the swan's enigmatic and graceful charm (even when in pastry form)?

bon appétit ♥

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Meggu, for doing wonders to fix the bad lighting of my original photo.

The recipe for Choux à la Crème and assembling the swan came from:

Keiko (Chef de Patissier). "The Perfect Cream Puff," copyrighted 2009-2011. Accessed from the World Wide Web: http://master-pastry.com/.

Keiko (Chef de Patissier). "Turn Your Cream Puffs into Cute Swans," copyrighted 2009-2011. Accessed from the World Wide Web: http://master-pastry.com/.

The recipe for the Crème Pâtissière came from:

Hisako Ogita. "How to Make Custard Cream (Vanilla Flavor)." In i ♥ macarons, 48-49. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books, 2006.