Sophie's Pi

Well. Lockdown’s been a funny old time.

I’ve just spent the last two months at my Dad’s house and got back to London this weekend. It’s nice to be home and back in my own kitchen. Part of the issue of me not uploading over the last month has been I didn’t want to test recipes too much at my Dad’s, a) because I didn’t want to waste ingredients and b) because they have an AGA not a normal oven. In the last month I have had some real baking disasters, including undercooked croissants and burnt bread.

But I’m back now, so provided I can get my hands on ingredients, the baking is back on.

My rugby club are doing a sweet challenge, where we each have to make a sweet dish that is linked to a happy memory for us. Mine was always going to be choux pastry swans. I first made these for a family dinner party my parents were having when I was about 10? Possibly? I’m not entirely sure. However, my portion control was completely wrong and the book I was baking from didn’t have reference pictures. So When I presented my family with one of these on a full sized dinner plate each after dinner, there was a bit of laughter. It always makes me smile remembering the blunder, but I was just so happy I had made them!

I have now made them a much more reasonable size, and while I would normally use chantilly cream to fill them, I had to use lemon buttercream as I am not about to go out in this to buy just cream!

Makes 9-12 swans

Ingredients

For the choux pastry

62ml milk
62ml water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
62g (2.2oz) butter
125g (4.4oz) flour
2-3 large eggs, lightly beaten

For the buttercream

150g butter, room temperature
225g icing sugar
pinch of salt
zest of 1 lemon

Method

Place the milk, water and butter in a pan and place on a gentle heat, stirring until the butter has all melted. Once melted bring to a rapid boil over a high heat and remove from the heat immediately.
Pour in the flour and beat with a spatula until well combined and then return to the heat. Beat the mixture on the heat for about 10-15 seconds until the mixture all comes away from the side of the pan and forms one ball. This is to dry out the dough.
Place the dough in a bowl to stop it from cooking any further and spread up the sides of the bowl to cool.
Add in the eggs a bit at a time, beating with the spatula until fully incorporated. This should take at least 3 separate additions. If you add it all at once your pastry will not be able to handle all the gg and won’t combine smoothly.
Keep adding egg until your pastry is smooth and glossy. If you draw a line through it with your spatula, your pastry should slowly start to fill in the gap.
Preheat the oven and line 1 or 2 baking trays.
Fill a piping bag with your pastry and a medium circular nozzle. Pipe 9-12 profiteroles by holding the bag almost vertically about 1.5 cm from the tray and let the dough come out and form a mound, there is no need to move your piping bag. Your mounds should be about 4-5cm in diameter. Leave space between as they will puff up.
Replace the medium circular nozzle with a smaller one (in a new piping bag, or by using the piping nozzle attachment if you have one) and pipe 9-12 swan necks. Similarly to the profiteroles, let a small mound form for the head and then draw and S shape for the neck. The smaller the nozzle you use the better for these. You may wish to do these on a separate tray if there is a large size difference between your nozzles, as thin necks will bake much faster.
Dab the tops of each profiterole and neck with some cold water and then brush over any leftover egg for a nice shine.
Bake the profiteroles and necks for 20-25 minutes until golden and sounding hollow when tapped. Take out and leave to cool
Make the buttercream by beating the butter until light and fluffy and then incorporating the sugar, salt and lemon zest. Fill a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle and your buttercream.
Cut the top off each profiterole and slice the removed top in half to form wings. Fill the base with buttercream and place a neck and the wings in. Top with further buttercream if not structurally sound.
Serve as they are, or ‘swimming’ on some melted chocolate.