Pate A Choux Swans

For the pate a choux:

Line at least two baking sheets with parchment paper, or grease pans well. Set them aside. Preheat oven to moderately hot 375°F.

In a small saucepan, combine butter, water and salt. Heat until butter melts, then remove pan from stove.

Add flour all at once and beat, beat, beat the mixture until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot.

Add one egg, and beat until well combined. Add remaining eggs individually, beating vigorously after each addition. Resulting mixture should be somewhat glossy, super smooth and somewhat thick.

Put the batter into a pastry bag with a small tip (or cut off the corner of a Ziploc bag filled with pastry). Onto one of your prepared pans, pipe out about 36 swan heads. Try to make it out to look like the number 2 and possibly a question mark (?), with a little beak (I nixed the beak—me being non-adept at something detailed creativity). See the related blog link if you need some photos to guide you.

Remove the tip from the bag and pipe out 36 swan bodies onto the second prepared pan (make sure to use a separate pan from the heads). These will be about 1.5” long, and about 1” wide. One end should be a bit narrower than the other.

Bake the heads (approximately 8 minutes) and bodies (12 -15 minutes until golden and puffy. The heads will be done a few minutes before the bodies, so keep a close eye on the baking process.

Remove the pastries to a cooling rack, and let them cool completely before filling.

For the chantilly cream:

Using a pre-chilled mixing bowl and whisk (I used the bowl and attachment of my stand mixer), beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar and continue to whisk just until soft peaks form. No overbeating.

For the assembly?

Take a swan body and use a very sharp (preferably serrated) knife to cut off the top horizontally.

Cut the removed top down the center lengthwise to make two wings. Set them beside the body.

Dollop or pipe a bit of filling into the body, insert head, and then add wings.

(Adapted from The Daring Bakers’ August 2012 Challenge Recipe.)