Halloween day 22 (barely, but PSD still day 22!) pate a choux toads and the witches
Why have the French simply thought of everything? It’s like ever great idea from clothing, to food, to kissing can be traced back to them. Of course the frenchiest of easy baking ideas, the light as air decorating element, the pate de choux is like the sexy foreign exchange student to America’s rice crispy treat nerd, when used to embellish a cake. It works, it is a cinch to whip up and it can be decorated and flavored in a million different, all delicious ways. But of course I’m using it in day two of the cauldron cake construction. I never thought 2020 would be the year I was harping on about bringing back toads as a major Halloween symbol, but here we are. And I am. So these pate de choux(es?) are going to be little frogs popping out of the bubbling cauldron, with long tongues and bulging eyes! I just dipped my toads in confectioners’ sugar and a few table spoons of water and green food coloring, but you can coat in chocolate or candy melts or caramel!
These can be made ahead of time so they are just waiting for your cake!
While decorating them, turn on the old version of Roald Dahl’s Witches. Is there anyone cooler on the planet than Angelica Huston? If there is I almost don’t want to know about her, because AH is all the coolness I can take. This movie is burned in my mind for a million creepy details that like 30 years later just don’t quit. To this day every now and then I wonder if the lady in front of me at the grocery store is just wearing shoes to hide a foot with no toes. And I always check paintings for any moving people. It is on Netflix just waiting to freak you out!
pate a choux
Ingredients
- 75 g water
- 75 g whole milk
- 3 g superfine sugar (bakers sugar) (granulated sugar pulsed in the food processor)
- 3 g salt
- 65 g butter (a little over 4 tbs)
- 80 g flour
- 3 eggs
Instructions
- pre-heat oven to 400
- boil water, milk, sugar, salt and butter in sauce pan
- add flour and stir on heat until it makes a paste that detaches from sides of the pan
- take off heat, put in new bowl
- stir in eggs one at a time, rapidly, it will be clumpy, weird and then poof! will become a lovely batter. stir rigoriously until when you pull your spoon up the batter stays stiff and looks like little bird's beaks
- transfer to a piping bag with large circular tip and pipe onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper any shape you like
- put pan in oven-TURN OVEN OFF- what? yep, turn it off for 10 mintues, then set it to 300F and bake for another 25 minutes- they will get golden brown and puffy