High Altitude Choux Pastry (for Cream Puffs and Eclairs)

This high altitude choux pastry (pâte à choux) can be used to make homemade cream puffs, profiteroles, chocolate eclairs and churros. Today’s step-by-step tutorial will guide you through the process of making the pastry dough, baking your cream puffs and eclairs, and then filling them with stabilized whipped cream. Even at high altitude, homemade choux pastry is not difficult to master if you follow the tips in today’s post.

You might also love these recipes for chocolate eclair pie, Bavarian cream pie, and high altitude puff pastry.

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What is Choux Pastry?

Choux pastry (pronounced “shoo pastry”) or pâte à choux is a French pastry dough used to make cream puffs, eclairs and even churros. The dough is cooked on the stove first, then eggs are gradually added, before the dough is piped onto a baking sheet. With a high moisture content in the dough, the escaping steam causes the dough to puff up as it bakes, resulting in a pastry with a crisp exterior or shell and hollow interior.

The pastry itself isn’t meant to have a strong flavor, but since it’s made with a lot of eggs, it will have a slight eggy, buttery taste. But its neutral flavor means it can be paired with anything you’d like to put inside it. Choux buns, cream puffs and eclairs can be filled with a variety of fillings such as whipped cream, pastry cream, custard or ice cream, and dusted with powdered sugar or drizzled with chocolate ganache.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Simple Ingredients. You only need a few basic ingredients from your pantry and fridge for today’s recipe.

Easy to Master. While the long list of steps and lengthy explanations may be intimidating, the process is really not that difficult to get right, and you’ll love the end result.

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

• Milk + Water. You can use milk and water, just milk, or just water, and it won’t really make a big difference in the end. These ingredients are simply to add moisture to the dough.
• Butter. Adds fat and a rich flavor, and contributes to the crisp exterior of the baked shells. Use unsalted butter, or omit the extra salt in the recipe.
• Granulated Sugar. Adds a tiny amount of sweetness, and helps contribute to browning.
• Vanilla Extract. Flavor.
• Salt. Enhances the flavors.
• Flour. For high altitude bakers, be sure to use bread flour, which is a high protein flour. The extra protein will give your dough more strength, structure and stability in order to help prevent the cream puffs from collapsing or deflating.
• Eggs. The eggs perform many functions in today’s recipe. They partially contribute to leavening (rising). The eggs add moisture and help to smooth out the paste-like dough or batter. And the protein in the eggs also adds strength and structural integrity to help the dough maintain its shape after baking, rather than collapsing.

Instructions

Getting Ready

• Preheat the oven to 375 F, and position two racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cook the Flour Mixture

• In a saucepan, measure the milk, water, butter, sugar, vanilla and salt. Heat the mixture over medium heat until the butter is melted and the mixture comes to a boil.
• Turn the heat down to medium low and add the flour. Cook the dough, stirring with a wooden spoon, for no more than 1-3 minutes, just until the dough easily pulls away from the pan and forms a ball sort of resembling mashed potatoes. You should also see a thin film on the bottom of the pan. Immediately remove the pan from the heat. If the dough splits and becomes oily, you’ve cooked it too long.
• You can continue to mix the dough in the saucepan, or scrape it into a bowl, but let it cool for 2 minutes before adding the eggs. If the dough is too hot when you add the eggs, it will cook the eggs, giving the dough an overly eggy flavor.

Add the Eggs

• Crack the eggs into a liquid measuring cup and lightly beat them with a fork. You should have close to 8 liquid ounces of eggs.
• Add 1 egg to the dough (1/4 of the beaten eggs), and use your wooden spoon to stir it into the dough. The dough will seem kind of slimy at first, but after a minute the egg will mix in. Add the second egg, mixing it in, then the third egg, mixing it in.
• When you have 1 egg left, just drizzle in about 2 teaspoons at a time to mix it in gradually; you may not need to use all the egg. The dough should become much smoother at this point, and you’re looking for a consistency that’s smooth, thick but pipeable, and with a slight sheen. If you lift your wooden spoon out of the dough, the dough should slowly drip off the spoon in a “v” shape. This will tell you that the dough is the right consistency. If you add too much egg, your cream puffs and eclairs can deflate when they’re baked, so don’t add more egg than is needed. Too little egg, though, and the dough will be dense and may not puff up.

Pipe the Dough

• Fit a 16-inch disposable piping bag with tip 2A (medium round tip) for cream puffs or tip 6B (large open star tip) for eclairs. Fill the bag half full of the dough; you can refill it as needed.
• For cream puffs, hold the piping bag at a 90 degree angle above the baking sheet and pipe a smooth mound of dough. You’re not piping it like the swirled frosting on a cupcake. Just hold the piping bag still, and let the dough spread out around the tip as you squeeze the bag. For small cream puffs, pipe mounds of dough measuring about 1 – 1 1/2 inches high and 1 1/2 – 2 inches wide, leaving 3 inches between each on the baking sheet. This size will yield about 30 small cream puffs. You can also pipe them larger, if preferred.
• For eclairs, pipe a line of dough measuring about 4 inches long and 1 – 1 1/2 inches wide. This will yield about 15-20 medium sized eclairs.
• I used approximately 1/3 of the dough to pipe 10 cream puffs and the other 2/3 of the dough to pipe 10 eclairs.
• Dip your finger in water, and use your moistened fingertip to press down the points on the dough so the tops of the cream puffs are smooth.

Bake

• Place the pans in the oven, and set the timer for 25 minutes. Do not open the oven until then.
• At 25 minutes, use a toothpick to prick a hole in all the puffs and eclairs, then rotate the pans and close the oven door again, doing all of this as quickly as possible so you don’t let too much heat out of the oven. Pricking them allows the steam to escape from the inside so they can dry out. If you don’t do this, the moisture inside can cause them to deflate.
• Bake them for another 5-15 minutes, checking them every 5 minutes until the color is a deep golden brown and they sound dry and hollow when you tap on them. If you want to be sure, you can test one by cutting it open and checking that the dough inside is no longer wet. The total baking time will be 30-40 minutes.
• Prick them again with a toothpick, then let them cool and dry out completely.
• If you can, turn off the oven, leave the oven door open, and let them dry out in the warm oven. If you’re unable to leave a hot oven door open (due to small children or pets in the house), let them cool in a draft-free place.

Filling and Ganache

• When your pastry is cooled, you can fill them with stabilized whipped cream. If you like, just poke a hole in the side of the pastry, insert a piping tip, and pipe the cream into the hollow center.
• Or, cut them in half using a sharp, non-serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Pipe a mound of whipped cream onto the bottom half, then place the top half on the whipped cream. I used tip 1M to pipe the whipped cream.
• Just before serving, lightly dust the top of the cream puffs with powdered sugar.
• Eclairs are usually topped with a chocolate glaze or chocolate ganache. To make the ganache, combine the cream and chopped chocolate in a small saucepan. Over medium low heat, heat the mixture gently, stirring with a spatula, just until the chocolate is melted and the mixture smooths out into a creamy ganache. Carefully spoon the warm ganache over the tops of the eclairs. Ganache will set and firm up in about an hour.

Recipe Variations and How to Use Choux Pastry

Cream Puffs

Also known as choux à la crème. The pastry dough is piped into mounds of various sizes for small or large choux buns, baked, then filled with whipped cream or custard and dusted with powdered sugar.

Croquembouche.

A croquembouche (French for “crunch in the mouth”) is a cone shaped tower of small cream puffs, held together by hardened caramel.

Choux au Craquelin

With this sweet variation on cream puffs, a craquelin (a cookie like dough of sugar, butter and flour) is rolled thinly, cut and draped over the pastry before baking the puffs. The craquelin creates a sweet, crackled surface over the puffs.

Eclairs

The dough is piped into oblong shapes instead of mounds. The baked shells are filled with whipped cream or custard and the tops are covered in a rich chocolate glaze or ganache.

Profiteroles

Profiteroles are simply cream puffs that are split in half, filled with ice cream instead of whipped cream, then drizzled with chocolate or caramel.

Churros

Instead of baking the dough, the dough is piped into hot oil (using scissors or a knife to snip the dough off in uniform lengths). The churros are fried until crisp, then coated in cinnamon sugar. While you can bake churros, it’s not as common as frying them.

Cheddar Cheese Puffs (Gougères)

Gougères, choux dough mixed with cheese, are a savory version of today’s recipe. With just a few simple changes, you can make the most delicious light and airy cheese puff appetizers. They’re best enjoyed warm from the oven.

• Omit the vanilla extract and sugar.
• After mixing in the eggs until the dough is the correct consistency, stir in 1 cup grated cheddar cheese, 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme, rosemary or chives (or half as much if using dried herbs), and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper.
• Bake as instructed and serve freshly baked.

High Altitude Tips for Choux Pastry

• Use a high protein bread flour, not all purpose flour, for greater strength and stability
• Let the dough cool slightly before adding the eggs.
• Add the eggs gradually to achieve the correct consistency in the dough. Too much egg/moisture, and the pastry will collapse. Too little egg/moisture, and the pastry will be dense, and will not puff up.
• Don’t over-mix the dough once you’ve reached the correct consistency, or it can become tough.
• Do not open the oven door before the pastry has baked for 25 minutes. Opening the door too early can cause the pastry to collapse.
• Prick the pastry at the 25 minute mark, to let steam escape.
• Continue baking until the pastry is a deep golden brown. If the pastry is under-baked, its structure can be weak, resulting in deflated shells.
• Let the pastry cool and dry out completely, preferably in the warm oven with the oven door open.
• Freeze the cooled pastry shells to keep them fresh.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

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