Choux Pastry with Vanilla Custard Cream

Description:
After several atttempts of making choux pastry, I think I prefer the result from this recipe. It's quite close to my favourite choux pastry from Beard Papa's. The pastry shells are well puffed, light and crunchy (but not hard) yet still has some chewiness. They are married in heaven with the smooth and silky custard cream. If you want to make it slightly fancy custard cream, use vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste to have the bean specks in the custard.

The choux pastry recipe is adapted from Ellen's recipe at Chicken's Kitchen.



Ingredients:
Choux Pastry:
50 g unsalted butter
50 g vegetable oil
200 g water
1/4 tsp salt

125 g bread flour

1/2 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs


Vanilla Custard Cream:
3 large yolks
1 large egg
1 Tbsp caster sugar

1½ Tbsp cornstarch
1½ Tbsp all purpose flour

½ cup full cream milk powder
1½ cups water
¼ cup caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract, Queen's
3 Tbsp light cream, 18% fat


Variations for topping:
Melted dark chocolate
Icing sugar



Directions:
Choux Pastry:
Put butter, oil, water and salt in a pot, bring it to simmerring point. Off the heat, add flour and mix well until the mixture comes off the pot. Leave it to cool. Meanwhile, make the custard cream.

When the custard is done, continue with the pastry making.

Preheat oven to 200 deg C.

Add baking powder and 1 egg to the dough. Mix until well combined. Then, add the other eggs, one by one and mix well every each addition of egg.

Line a baking sheet with a baking paper. Using an ice cream scoop (about 1.5 Tbsp), take the dough and put it on the baking sheet, leave a space about 5 cm in between the dough. Bake for 20 minutes then turn the baking sheet 180 deg (the back is facing at the front now) so that the colour of the choux pastry will be even. Do not open the oven door for too long, otherwise, the temperature will go down drastically. Then, reduce the temperature setting to 160 deg C. Bake for another 20-30 minutes until the pastry shells are dry, no bubbles on the surface.

Repeat the steps with the remaining dough.

Once all shells are done, bake all of them for another 10 minutes at 160 deg C. Cool the shell before filling it with the custard.

Store the shells without custard cream filling in an air tight container.

To refresh the shells on the next day, preheat oven to 160 deg C and reheat for about 5 minutes.


Custard Cream:
Mix eggs and sugar in a big bowl. Add cornstarch and flour to the egg mixture then mix using a whisk until smooth.

Put milk, water and sugar in a pot. Set it over medium high heat and stir until the milk begins to steam.

Whisking the egg mixture constantly and pour the hot milk slowly in a stream to the egg mixture. Stir until smooth. Pour the combined egg mixture to the pot and cook on medium low heat until thickened, whisking rapidly and evenly to prevent scorching.

Remove from the heat, keep stirring for 1 minute to cool the custard slightly then add vanilla and cream.

Pour the custard cream in a container and cover the entire surface with a cling film, pressing the film onto the surface of the cream to prevent skinning. Store the custard cream in the fridge.