Baking Chouquettes
About two months ago, I wrote about a small neighborhood bakery on Grand Avenue in Oakland called La Parisienne. This was the bakery that introduced me to chouquettes. I thought to myself, if I could get a hold of pearl sugar, I would consider making these. 
My colleague and I were talking about pearl sugar for Belgium waffles and when she decided to order some from Amazon, I asked her to order a box for me as well.
My niece came over and I gathered all the ingredients to make chouquettes. We would use a recipe from David Lebowitz. The cool thing is that aside from the pearl sugar, you can probably find all other ingredients in your pantry or fridge.
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
- 6 oz of unsweetened butter
- 4 eggs (save 1 yolk for glaze)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 tbsp milk (for glaze)
- Pearl sugar (for topping)
In a saucepan, melt the butter, water, salt, and granulated sugar over medium. Once melted, remove from heat and add the flour to the pan. Place the pan back over medium heat and stir until it is smooth and forms a soft dough.
Place the dough into a large bowl and wait a few minutes before beating the eggs in one at a time. The fourth egg should be separated. Add the egg white into the mixture and place the one egg yolk into a small bowl for later use. Mix thoroughly for about five minutes.
Pour dough into a Ziploc bag. Cut about a quarter inch off the corner of the bag and start piping 1 1/2 inch dollops onto a parchment lined sheet.
Now it’s time to make the glaze. Add a tablespoon of half and half to the egg yolk that you saved earlier. Brush the top of each pastry dollop with the glaze and then top generously with pearl sugar.
Place the sheet in an oven that has already been preheated to 425 degrees. They take about 25 minutes to cook, but check your oven after the first fifteen minutes and then every five minutes thereafter. If it is already getting dark, turn the oven down to 375 degrees. I turned my oven down at 20 minutes.
That’s it! Pretty simple, right? They make great snacks. For a dessert, I would recommend piping in some fresh whipped cream with a side of sliced strawberries. Yum!
