Choux pastry.

Choux pastry is a very simple thing to get right and also a very simple thing to get wrong. What you are looking for is something that is like a Yorkshire pudding I its nature and there for a little difficult to do unless you follow the simple rules that follow

Measure the ingredients properly; you cannot just make do with what you think.
Do not boil the water until the butter has melted. If you boil the water, you will get to much evaporation and that will affect the result.

Work fast and vigorously to get rid of the lumps.
Do not add the egg when it is to hot or you will scramble the eggs.
Do not ever add all the egg at once.
Once you have all that in your head then you can make the pastry as follows.

Choux pastry ingredients
85g to 3 oz butter
200ml or 7 fl oz water
105g or 3 and 3 quarter oz of plain flour
A pinch of salt (only if you butter is not salted)
And 3 eggs.

Take your flour and double sift it. I know that doing it once is and should be enough but to do it twice is the only way to make doubly sure that you do not have any lumps. Then take the water and the butter and place it all in a heavy bottomed saucepan. You want one that will not stick but be a good conductor of heat. The best you can use is a cast iron pan if you have one. Put the pan on the heat and slowly bring to the boil. The reason for doing this slowly is to give the butter a chance to melt. Another thing that will help is to have the butter cut up into small pieces so it will melt quicker than if it was in one big lump. Once it has reached a rolling boil, add the flour to the pan. As soon as you do this, remove from the heat and work as fast as you can. The thing you want to be doing is beating the flour into the water and melted butter as fast as you can but not cooking it any more. What you are looking for is a blending of the melted butter water and flour into a smooth paste. It will soon become quite smooth and thick and start to leave the sides of the pan. Once it has done this you need to cool every thing down a bit before you go to the next stage. Place the mixture in a bole out of the pan and in another bowl of cold water or ice. Just any thing to take the heat out of what you have just cooked.

Once it has cooked, you can move on to the next stage. Now you take the paste that is still warm but not hot. You should be able to hold it in your hands very comfortably and not fell that it is to hot. If it is cool down sufficiently start to beat the eggs in to the mix. Beat the eggs up with a fork so that they pore in rather than one egg at a time this will help if you have a problem with to much egg for the mix. Mix in a little at a time. Beat the eggs in until you get what is called a dropping consistency. Now that thing is easier to show some one than it is to explain. A dropping constancy for this is that you want the mixture to drop from the spoon in a slow reluctant blob. If it just pours from the spoon the mix is to thin, if it sticks to the spoon add a little more egg to the mix. That is why you always add the egg a little at a time and whisk them up. You can always add a little more egg to the mix but it is very hard to take it out if it all goes to thin and runny.

Once you have the mix, right let it rest for a few minutes, then start to pipe it out as, and how you need it. The reason why this cooks the way it does is that the eggs and the water create steam and that forms a hollow inside. Bake until you have a good brown all over colure on ever thing in a moderate oven. Try not to bang the oven door or be tempted to keep on opening the oven to see how things are baking as the temperature will go up and down and you are in affect trying to make a soufflé but of pastry so gently does it. When it is ready or you think, it is take it out of the oven and let it cool. Remember that it is going to be full of steam so if you are going to serve this cold then put a little hole in the pastry to help let the steam out , other wise it will go soft . once they have cooled and are good and ready do with them what you will but try and eat them on the day as choux pastry does not keep that well .