Baked Pâte à Choux

A piping bag (an inexpensive investment, and it lasts forever) is the easiest way to form the dough into whatever shape you choose, but you can always use a plastic freezer bag with one corner snipped off, or two spoons. The imperfections that occur with a plastic bag or spoons can be repaired by dipping your finger into water and smoothing out the rough spots.

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus a little more for greasing the baking sheet
• Salt
• 1 cup flour
• 4 eggs

• Nutritional Information

  • Nutritional analysis per serving (36 servings)

    43 calories; 3 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 0 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 0 grams sugars; 1 gram protein; 27 milligrams cholesterol; 8 milligrams sodium

  Note: Nutrient information is not available for all ingredients. Amount is based on available data.
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2 to 4 dozen pastries, depending on size

Preparation

1. Heat oven to 400 and grease a baking sheet with butter. Put the butter and a pinch of salt in a saucepan over high heat; add 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and add all the flour at once; stir constantly until the mixture pulls away from the pan and forms a ball, about 30 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and beat in the eggs one at a time; use an electric mixer if you like, and beat until the mixture is smooth. (At this point, you can cover the dough and refrigerate it for up to two days.)
2. If you’re planning on piping out the dough, scoop it into a pastry bag with a 1/2-inch tip, or a plastic freezer bag with a corner cut off. Pipe the pastry onto the baking sheet, or just use two spoons to form your desired shape. Cream puffs should be circles about 1 inch wide and a little over 1 inch tall; éclairs should be 3-to-4-inch fingers, about 1 inch wide.
3. Bake until the pastries are golden brown, nicely puffed up and sound hollow when you tap on them, about 30 minutes for cream puffs and 40 minutes for éclairs. Use a skewer to prick one or two holes in each one to allow the steam to escape; transfer to a rack and let cool to room temperature.
4. To fill the pastries using a pastry bag, poke a hole into the pastry and pipe the filling into it, or cut off the top caps of each pastry, spoon in the filling, and close it up like a sandwich. (Éclairs can be slit open and filled, too.) Serve as is, or drizzle with chocolate sauce.

About 1 hour