Chocolate lemon chou

Choux pastry is a technique that may seem mysterious and complicated, but once you have a few tricks to make it succesfully, it's a real pleasure. For this recipe, for example, I've opted for a combination of flavours by keeping more or less the traditional shape of the choux pastry and adding a decoration around it.

Being a big fan of chocolate, I wanted to add this ingredient with an extra touch: lemon. So the chou is topped with a chocolate and lemon ganache as well as a creamy lemon filling inside.

Before we start the recipe, let's go back to the basics of choux pastry. To make this dough, first bring the milk, water, salt, sugar and butter to a boil, then add the flour. First important step: make sure to dry the pastry well before removing it from the heat. Once off the heat, allow the steam to escape before adding the eggs. There are two options for doing this: you can either mix the pastry with a stand mixer, or you can mix it by hand with a spatula.

Once the steam is completely removed from the pastry, the eggs are added gradually, mixing them into the dough.

The choux pastry is ready when it is shiny and not too dense.

Are you ready? Let's check out the recipe.

Tools

• A stand mixer or electric whisk

• One pipping bag, one round nozzle and one star nozzle

• A hand mixer

• A baking tray

Ingredients

Chocolate whipped ganache

• 125 g heavy cream (A)

• 105 g dark chocolate

• Zest of a lemon

• 250 g cold heavy cream (B)

Craquelin

• 50 g butter

• 60 g brown sugar

• 60 g flour
  

Choux pastry

• 90 g water

• 90 g milk

• 4 g sugar

• 4 g salt

• 80 g butter

• 100 g flour

• 180 g beaten whole eggs

Lemon filling

• 75 g lemon juice

• 100 g whole eggs

• 33 g milk

• 55 g of sugar

• 2 g gelatine

• 1 pinch of salt

• 132 g butter

How To

Chocolate whipped ganache

• Warm the cream (A) with the lemon zest and leave to infuse for 15 minutes.

• Filter the cream to remove the zest and reheat the cream again.

• Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Pour the cream in three times over the chocolate while stirring.

• Add the cold cream (B) and blend with a hand mixer.

• Leave to cool for at least 6 hours and ideally overnight.

• Take the ganache out of the fridge and whip using a stand mixer or electric whisk.

• Use directly once ready to garnish the choux pastry.

Craquelin

• Mix the sugar and butter. Add the flour and make a dough.

• Spread the dough between two baking sheets until it is 1 mm thick.

• Put the dough in the freezer while preparing the chou pastry.

Choux pastry

• Put the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

• Remove from the heat and add the flour. Then, over medium heat, stir until the dough is well incorporated.

• Stir for a few minutes so that the steam escapes.

• Remove from heat and place in a bowl.

• Add the eggs one by one and stir each time until the dough absorbs all the eggs. The dough should be smooth and shiny.

• Put the dough in a piping bag and pipe 7 cm chou pastries on a buttered baking tray.

• Preheat the oven to 180°C and bake for 45 minutes.

• Remove from the oven and let cool.

Lemon filling

• Soak the gelatin in a bowl of cold water.

• Mix the lemon juice, eggs, milk, sugar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a simmer while stirring.

• Remove from the heat, add the gelatin and butter and blend with a hand mixer.

• Set aside in the fridge until ready to use.

Assembly

• Cut off the top part of the chou (1/4 of its total size).

• Pipe in a first layer of ganache mounted inside the chou.

• Pipe a layer of creamy lemon, then a last generous layer of ganache.

• Put back the part of the cabbage previously removed.

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