It's hard to resist this pastry sprinkled with granulated sugar. Especially when the little chouquettes come out of the oven all soft, golden and crispy. Easy to share, chouquettes are nowadays favored by gourmets to accompany their breakfast or a tasty snack.
Simply made of choux pastry made of water (or milk), butter, wheat flour, eggs and salt, the chouquette, short for cabbage with the suffix "ette", was created in the 16th century by the Italian pastry chef Popelini who, while working at the court of Queen Catherine de Medici, imported it to France.
More generally, it is to him that we owe the invention of the pastry cooked on the fire, also called "hot pastry", which will give birth to another pastry popular with the French, the profiteroles, and in the 19th century, to the pièce montée of Marie-Antoine Carême.
From this simple pastry dried on the fire, the inspired Popelini later had the idea of adding custard or whipped cream, but as far as chouquettes are concerned, it is precisely their hollowed-out and light side that made them a success, and the tradition of garnishing them with sugar (or pieces of chocolate) may have had something to do with it too.
The chouquette is to pastry what minimalism is to painting.
"Rid of any illusionist effect, it presents itself to us in all its nakedness, with for all adornment these few white crystals and offers itself as it is: a small sweetness without any other pretension than to be eaten, quite simply".
To make the famous sugar grains stick to the chouquettes, it is recommended to mix an egg yolk with a little milk and, before cooking, to brush each little chouquette with it.
As for the texture when they come out of the oven, you can use milk (250 ml) if you want them to be soft and, if you're more of a crunchy team, just water. And of course, to obtain both effects, you can use 125 ml of each drink, they will then keep all the better.
Finally, to obtain a nice round shape, a piping bag is ideal, but don't panic if you don't have one: simply place small piles of choux pastry on your oven tray, previously made up with the help of 2 teaspoons.
Have a good appetite!
Valérie from Comme des Français
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