- [Narrator] Narrator] Today,
on "America's Test Kitchen," Dan makes Bridget, Choux au Craquelin. Lisa reviews piping sets. And Bridget makes Julia,
Gnocchi a la Parisienne, with arugula, tomatoes, and olives. It's all coming up right here
on "America's Test Kitchen." (bright music) - One of the first things that I learned how to make in a commercial bakery, was pate a choux or choux pastry. Now, this versatile dough can be used to make some of the most iconic things like cream puffs, some
profiteroles, and eclairs. And then you have croquembouche, you have crullers, you
have St. Honore cake. - Bridget, Bridget,
Bridget, I gotta stop you. You haven't gotten to the best one. - Which is what? I think I named them all. - No, you didn't. Choux au Craquelin. It is amazing. So it's a cream puff,
which we all know and love. - Love it.
- Right? So it's choux paste filled
with a beautiful pastry cream that's lightened a little
bit with whipped cream. And on top is the Craquelin, which is basically a cookie dough that melts and drapes over,
and gets crisp in the oven. So you have crispy, soft pastry cream. It's everything. So we're gonna start
with the pastry cream. It's gonna take the longest to cool down. - Right.
- Right? So I'm starting with
two cups of whole milk and this medium sauce pan here. And I'm gonna bring this to
a simmer over medium heat. So while that's heating up, we're gonna mix the
rest of our pastry cream ingredients together.
- All right. - So, I have 2/3 of a cup of all purpose flour in here. To that, we're gonna add sugar. I have 1/2 a cup of granulated sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt. And we'll just quickly
whisk this together. (bowl clangs) So, flours are first thickener, the second is egg yolks. So we have six large egg yolks here. These obviously add
beautiful, eggy richness, and they're also gonna provide thickening when we get into the heat of it. And then I have another 1/2
a cup of cold milk here. Great. So we'll just whisk this together. Okay, so this is nice and smooth. I'm going to get our milk, which is at a nice simmer right now. And so we're gonna start
the process of tempering. - Okay.
- So this is really important. We've got eggs in here, we
don't want them to curdle. What we're gonna do is basically whisk in about 1/2 a cup of our hot milk. We wanna do this slowly here, 'cause we wanna bring the temperature of this
mixture up a little bit, so we don't wanna flood it with a lot of hot milk at this point. You'd get curdling there. So we're just gonna whisk constantly, get about 1/2 a cup in there, and this gently brings the temperature up. Okay, great. So that's there. We're gonna add it back to our milk here. - Okay.
- And this is actually the opposite where you
wanna add it really quickly, because this is the hot thing, and adding this quickly
will neutralize that and bring it down to a
more even temperature. - Okay.
- So, again, whisking constantly and
just flood it right in. (whisker clanging) Okay. So, now, it is time
to cook our pastry cream. So I'm gonna put this over medium heat, and there's gonna be a lot of
whisking and a lot of stirring because what you don't wanna have happen is flour, egg, to sit at the bottom, get too hot, curdle- - Right.
- and then you don't have a very even mixture. Takes about a minute. - Okay.
(whisker clanging) - Okay, great. You can see that thickening
up a little bit there. So, now, at this point, we
don't wanna risk it anymore. We're gonna go down to medium low. So we're gonna whisk this constantly for about eight minutes. We really wanna thicken this up. Beautiful.
- That is a lovely mixture there. - [Dan] Lovely mixture, right? We're actually gonna go
even thicker than this. - Oh.
- So I'm gonna turn it back up to medium.
- Okay. - I'm gonna whisk for
about one to two minutes. And what we're really looking for, is if I drop the pastry cream on the top, it really clumps on top, so it doesn't blend easily back in. All right, let's check it. And that's great. Nice and thick. So I'm gonna turn off the heat, and slide it off the heat up here. Now, it's time for our last two additions. So I have four tablespoons of cold butter, and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. - Mm.
- Whisk this together. So we're gonna get it into
a nice, large, wide bowl. We want this to cool down kind of as quickly as we possibly can. And a wider bowl is gonna do that. Pastry cream loves to form a skin on top, and we don't really want
that in this application. - No. (chuckles)
- So I'm just gonna do a little bit of parchment,
(spray hissing) lightly sprayed, and it's gonna get pressed
right on top of it. So we want this to chill down completely. It's gonna set and
thicken up really nicely, and that takes at least
two hours in the fridge, up to 24 hours. - [Bridget] Great. - So, pastry cream is out of the way. We're gonna work on the Craquelin. We're gonna start with six tablespoons of softened, unsalted butter. And to that we're gonna add
1/2 a cup of light brown sugar. I'm gonna just use my spatula. And because we have softened butter, we'll just kind of
smear it and combine it. Now, we're gonna add 3/4 of a cup of all-purpose flour, and a pinch of salt. And that's it. So, again, just that smearing motion and we'll get these combined. Okay. Beautiful. That looks great.
- That looks fantastic. - Okay, so now, what I'm gonna do is transfer this to a
piece of parchment paper, and I'll use my hands to form this into a rough 6-inch square shape at this point. Great. Now, we've got a second
sheet of parchment paper, and we're gonna roll this out to 13 by 9. (parchment paper rustles) Okay, great. So we're at 13 by 9. That looks great. Okay, so I'm gonna peel off
the top piece of parchment now, (parchment paper crunching) Make sure that comes right off. Okay, so using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, we're gonna cut 24 circles. We're gonna leave them in here. We're not gonna try and
take them out right now. (cutter rustling) Okay, great. We have 24. I'm gonna put the parchment
paper back on top, and then this whole setup is
gonna go into the freezer. It's gonna take about 30
minutes for them to firm up, but you can do this up
to two days in advance. Okay, so it's finally
time for the pate a choux, which is arguably the star
of the entire situation. - 100%. - That's why we started this whole thing. So we're gonna do a
little bit of prep work. First, we're gonna prep our pan. So, I have a little bit of spray here, (spray hissing)
and I'm just gonna lightly coat it. (spray hissing) And then lightly dust it
with some all-purpose flour. All right. So our goal is a very thin
layer of flour on here, but we start with more so that we can kind of shake it around. - [Bridget] Right. - We can get it into all of the crevices. So this is way too much flour still, so I'm gonna knock it out
in this trash can over here. Get just a fine amount on there. So this is gonna help,
obviously, with sticking. We don't want these to stick to the pan. But it also offers a really
easy way to mark our spots where we're gonna pipe the pate a choux. So we're gonna do 24 circles, and I'm using the 2-inch biscuit
cutter that we used before. It's really just gonna
give us a landing zone, and that's pretty much how
far the dough will expand out. So you can tell if
they're gonna be touching. - [Bridget] Great. - This is all prepped out. So we're gonna set this
aside for a minute. Let's start on the actual pate a choux. So, in this sauce pan here, we have six tablespoons of water. I have five tablespoons of butter that have been cut into 1/2 inch pieces. We have two tablespoons of whole milk. One and 1/2 teaspoons of granulated sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of salt. We're gonna bring this to
a boil over medium heat. Great. We're at a rolling boil. So I'm gonna shift this off the heat and I'm gonna add 1/2 a
cup of all-purpose flour, and stir that until it's combined. Okay, so I'm gonna shift
it back onto the burner, and we're gonna go over low heat, and we're gonna cook this
for about three minutes. I'm gonna stir and kinda
smear it around like this. We're looking for it to
take on an appearance of kinda wet sand and be really shiny. And during that time, it's gonna hit about 175 to 180 degrees. We've got that nice
appearance of wet sand, so I'm gonna shut off the heat here. All right, let's see where
we are with the temperature. Okay, beautiful. We're at 177, so right
in the sweet spot there. Perfect. We've hit our temp, and we're gonna take this
immediately to our food processor. - [Bridget] All right, I'm following you. (pan clacking) - So I'm gonna start off with
just this mixture in here, and run it for about 10 seconds in order to cool it down a
bit before we add our eggs. - All right.
(food processor whirring) - So, while that's going, I'm
gonna whisk together our eggs. I have two whole eggs plus an egg white. Now, that egg white is
gonna add more water, which adds more lift to it, and we found that it
got a nice crisp crust because of adding that to it. - All right.
(whisker clanging) - Okay, that's great. So we have our two eggs,
plus one extra white in here. So, now we're gonna go in with our eggs. So I'm just gonna open
up the feed tube here, and while it's processing,
streaming the eggs. (egg mixture sloshing) We'll go for about 30 seconds here and then we'll scrape it down. Okay. Sometimes the egg and that kind of mixture can sit on the bottom if the
blades don't get too low. - [Bridget] Right. - So we're just gonna make
sure that's incorporated. Awesome. So we're gonna go
for about 30 seconds more. It's gonna get really
nice and sticky and tacky. - Mm.
(food processor whirring) - Okay, beautiful. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna take the blade out here, and then I got my pastry bag here, and I'm using a half-inch round tip, and that's pinched off there so it's not- - Right.
- gonna come through. And I bring it in and scrape it in there. - [Bridget] Nice. - The thing that I learned about piping that it really made a
lot more sense to me, was that you're never
really squeezing this. It's all about the
twisting action at the top. And that will easily just
push everything through to make sure you get it all out. So we're just gonna twist at the top, it will just fill in and pop that out when we get down there
and get good pressure. You can see when it
starts to come through. Okay, so I'm gonna go here and we're gonna do about
one-and-a-half inch mounds, and they're gonna expand as they bake. - Right.
- So right in the center of our two inches. So we've got 24 nicely piped out. And don't worry about any
kind of imperfections on top, the Craquelin's gonna
go right on top there and smooth over any problems. So I'm gonna grab those from the freezer. - Great. - Okay, so Bridget,
these are the Craquelin that we made earlier. Froze. They've been in there about 30 minutes. They're nice and firm. It's gonna make it really
easy to transfer over. - He's not lying.
- And for that, I'm gonna use a little
offset spatula here, and we'll just go underneath, pick it up, and we'll give each one a little hat. Beautiful. So, it's time to bake. We're gonna go to a 400-degree
oven on the middle rack, bake for 15 minutes. Then without opening the door,
we're gonna drop it to 350. So, a little bit more moderate. We're gonna go at that point until they turn really
gorgeous golden brown, which takes about seven to 10 minutes. At "Cook's Illustrated," we're food nerds. That's why every recipe we
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like you for over 30 years. So, are you ready to become
the best cook you know? Subscribe to "Cooks Illustrated" magazine at cooksillustrated.com today. I think these are gonna
look really gorgeous. - Oh. - [Dan] I mean, look at those. (tray rustling) Beautiful browning. So we'll get them out. - [Bridget] Mm, mm, mm. - The next step here is we wanna dry these out on the inside and let the top really crisp. So you pick them up and you wanna do a 3/4 inch slit in the
side of each one of them. And the slit will allow steam to escape. All right. And the last one. So we've got slits in all of them. We're gonna go back into the oven, which has been turned off, and we're gonna prop the door
open with a wooden spoon. So they're gonna be in a
nice, warm, dry environment, but they're not gonna bake anymore. That's gonna really
encourage them to dry out. Perfect. Thank you. So we're gonna let them
sit for about 45 minutes. Okay, so these are beautifully
baked and ready to be filled, and we're gonna do that
with our pastry cream, but we're gonna lighten it
up with some whipped cream. - Okay.
- So I have a cup of cold heavy cream
here in a nice big bowl. I'm also whisking side to side. (whisker clanging) So you can see we have nice
stiff peaks, which is wonderful. It's closer in texture
to the pastry cream, so it'll combine really nicely. Now, we're gonna come
over to our pastry cream. You can see how much this has set up. We wanna combine these two and
we're gonna whisk this first. (cream squelches)
(bowl clacks) So we're gonna fold this
into our whipped cream. All right, so I am just
gently folding this together. You can see it's getting
a lot lighter in color. It's still plenty stiff because we cook that
pastry cream a long time and got it nice and thick. Okay, that looks great. Now the goal here is to fill these up with
about two tablespoons of this lovely filling. So really pack it in. A 1/4-inch tip works
great if you have that. A Bismarck tip, which is nice
and long at the end here, this is fabulous for like jelly donuts, and for filling things like this. Makes a smaller hole and allows
you to reach to the back, and as you pull out, you
can really fill it up. So this is what I'm gonna go with. So we've got our Bismarck tip in there, and we're gonna fill this
with about 1/3 of the mixture. Perfect.
- There we go. Okay, so I'm gonna go in
where I made that slit. And with the Bismarck, it's nice to go all the
way to the backside, and then as you're filling and
you feel it getting heavier, you pull it out. And that is a good indicator right there. When you start to see it at the opening but before it's spilling out. We'll put it on our platter right there. Okay, so we're gonna keep
going until all 24 are filled. This bag's gonna empty out and we're gonna keep
filling it up as we go. - [Bridget] Lovely. - Okay, here we are. We have
24 perfect Choux au Craquelin. And what I wanna know
is this gonna compete with all those other choux pastry desserts that you mentioned? - This is straight out of
a beautiful pastry case. This looks great.
- They look beautiful, right? - Yeah.
- All right, but you gotta try them. - Ooh.
- They're heavy. There are so much pastry cream in there. - Nice.
- Let's dig in. - All right.
(pastry crunches) Hmm. No runny pastry cream at all. - [Dan] No. It's is so good. - [Bridget] Even though
they're packed full of cream, they're nice and light. It's like a beautiful balance of sweet and a little bit of a savory dough. - And I just love that Craquelin. Like, it obviously looks beautiful, but it's that sweetness and
that's such a nice crunch. - In the world of choux pastry, this has climbed to the top. - Ah yes. That's what I was hoping for. - You're gonna wanna make these
beautiful, little pastries. Cook a pastry cream until
it's nice and thick. Freeze the discs of crackling dough. Use a food processor to
make the pate a choux, and then fold whipped cream
right into the pastry cream before filling. From "America's Test Kitchen," you are absolutely gonna wanna
make this Choux au Craquelin. I wonder if you could use this to make, I don't know, something like gnocchi. Are you ready to take your
cooking to the next level? Introducing "The Complete
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- Gadgets you didn't know you needed. - and tips.
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americastestkitchen.com. (upbeat music) - If you wanna step up your baking game, consider a piping set. They're perfect for frosting, decorating, and writing on cakes,
cupcakes, and cookies. A good piping set includes
pastry bags, decorative tips, and couplers that let
you change tips easily. Now you could make do with
a plain zipper lock bag with a corner cutoff, but a real piping set is gonna
give you so much more control and more decorative options. We tested several sets, most were packed with
redundant and oddball tips, and they lacked some of the
six most essential tips, including a small, round writing tip, a larger round tip for bigger designs, a large open star tip, a large closed star tip, a leaf tip, and a pedal tip. And then there were the pastry bags. Cloth bags are a pain to clean and dry, and they hang onto stains. We prefer disposable plastic
pastry bags of about 14 inches. You shouldn't fill them more than halfway because you need space to hold onto. So smaller bags are not great. And with plastic, you can
even wash and reuse them. Now, we did find one
piping set to recommend. The Wilton 20-piece Beginning
Buttercream Decorating Set for about $13. It's not perfect. It comes with only five
of the six essential tips. To round it out, we recommend adding a
large closed star tip, a coupler, and 14-inch bags. Now, with all this in hand, you're gonna be piping like a pro. - At "America's Test Kitchen," recipe development is serious business. - Head over to americastestkitchen.com, and unlock 14,000
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all-access trial membership at americastestkitchen.com today. (upbeat music) - Today, Bridget's gonna cook
one of my favorite dishes, Gnocchi a la Parisienne, which are delicate little dumplings made with pate a choux paste and Gruyere. - You said delicate little dumplings and here I am.
(both laughing) I love this version of gnocchi. It's kind of a Franco-Italian dish. - Mm-hmm.
- This version, you still get light airy dumplings, and it's really, really easy. - Yeah, that's why I like it. - Exactly. So it does
start with choux paste. So I've got here 3/4 cup
of water in my sauce pan, and I just wanna get the heat going because I'm going to add four
tablespoons of unsalted butter and 3/4 teaspoon of table salt. While that's coming up to a simmer, I've already fitted a pastry
bag here with a 1/2-inch tip. - Mm-hmm.
- Got it ready to go because this is going to be
how we shape our gnocchi. - Very cool. - Really, really easy. All right, so I've got that to the side. And I also have three eggs here. I'm going to whisk them
with a little whisk. I've got these in a measuring cup because it's gonna be easy to add these to the dough later on.
(whisker clanging) We're at boiling points. Just slide this off
heat just for a moment, and I'm going to add in 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour. So it's 3/4 cup of water to 3/4 cup all-purpose flour. I'm just gonna stir this,
get it nice and mixed. Very, very thick at this point. - Yeah.
- I just wanna make sure to work out any lumps, get this kinda worked in there. So I'm gonna slide back over. And now I'm gonna turn the heat to low, and I do need to stir
this the entire time, but I wanna cook this until, as you know, it should start
to get really nice and shiny. That's gonna take about two minutes. All right. Seeing a
little bit of shine there. - Mm-hmm.
- Yeah, it doesn't look quite as flat. It's time. That was two minutes. Time to kill the heat. All right, we're gonna move
over to our food processor here. - Ah, brilliant. - So much easier than chasing around
those eggs in a skillet. All right. So now, I wanna add
a little bit of cheese here. As I said, it's almost like Gruyere. This is two ounces of Gruyere cheese. You can use Emmentaler if you want, which is a little bit less sharp. And a little bit of pepper, this is 1/8 of a teaspoon black pepper. Just a little dabble dooya. So I've got (food processor clatters)
lid on, and I've got the feed tube off here. I wanna give a little bit of
space for the air to come out. I'm gonna let this run
for about 10 seconds until the cheese is melted and
it just all comes together. I'm gonna add the eggs here. (food processor whirring) All right, eggs are in. I do wanna take a moment
and scrape down the sides. Sometimes the egg gets
flung around a little bit. All right, so just
scraping down the sides, lid goes back on, and this time, I'm gonna let it run for about 30 seconds until it all comes together. It's gonna be super sticky though. (food processor whirring) All right. That is it for the choux paste. - So easy. Love it.
- So easy. So now I've got my pastry bag and I fitted it with a 1/2-inch tip. Just prepared it, kind of
squished the bag down in there so that none of this is gonna
fall through the bottom. It's such a sticky mess. It wouldn't do it, but it's
a good habit to get into. Now if you didn't have
a friend helping you, you could use a glass, (chuckles) and we go. - There you are, my dear.
(plastic crunching) - That's great. So I'm just gonna- (plastic rustling) push this mixture down
just a wee bit here. And I'm gonna leave this just
like this at room temperature so the mixture can cool a little bit and also become a little bit
more firm before we pipe it. It's gnocchi time. - All right. - This is four quarts of
water, brought it up to a boil. I now wanna lower this down
just so that it's at a simmer. - [Julia] Now, no salt? - No salt. So I'm gonna start to twist this bag. Get it going. I'm gonna hold this about
three inches above the water- - Mm-hmm.
- at a 45-degree angle. And as it comes out I'm gonna cut about 3/4 inch lengths. Isn't that cute? And if it starts to stick, I just dip the knife right in there. So about 20 to 30 in here. We're gonna call that between 20 and 30. And we're gonna let these cook, they're gonna float to the top, obviously, and they're gonna get a little bit firm, that only takes about two minutes. - [Julia] Okay. - All right. So, it's
been about two minutes. They're all floating. - [Julia] They look perfect. - [Bridget] Aren't they cute? - [Julia] Yes. - All right, so I'm
using a spider skimmer, and I'm gonna put these
on a greased baking sheet, because they will stick to everything if you don't grease it. - [Julia] How many batches
does this do altogether? - [Bridget] About four or five. - [Julia] All right. - All right, Julia, it's time to turn our gnocchi
into something really special. We're going to saute it, which gives it a gorgeous texture. It's gonna puff and turn a little brown, little bit of a crunch. So I've got three tablespoons
of unsalted butter here. And it's melted. I've
got it over medium heat. Now, I'm going to add all the gnocchi in, (gnocchi sizzles)
in one layer. And I'm gonna cook this for
about six minutes total, and every couple of
minutes go in and stir it so it's evenly brown and
they'll start to puff. Julia, look at that. - Those look so good. - Oh, look what six minutes will do. Isn't that beautifully puffed? - Mm-hmm.
- I'm gonna take 'em out. Put 'em on the sheet pan. So two more tablespoons
of unsalted butter, just gonna melt that. Again, we're dealing
with medium heat here. Shouldn't take too long. That's just about melted. I'm gonna go ahead and add in 20, exactly 20 cherry tomatoes. (Julia laughs) They're quartered. And exactly 20 Kalamata olive, and two teaspoons of minced fresh thyme, and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt. All right. So I'm just
gonna stir this around. Let it cook until the tomato
starts to soften a bit. And that's only gonna
take about two minutes. - Mm-hmm.
(food sizzles) - All right. So, now, we're gonna add a
little bit of lemon juice. Perk things up here. I've got two teaspoons of
freshly squeezed lemon juice. The gnocchi's gonna go
right at the back end. Oh, I love it.
- All right. (food sizzles) - [Bridget] All right. So I just want to toss
this just delicately (pan rustling) until it's glazed. - Mm-hmm.
- So, now, I'm gonna kill the heat. I've got one and 1/2
ounces of baby arugula, goes right in. I'm gonna stir that in delicately, and it only takes about 15
seconds for this to wilt. - [Julia] That looks spectacular. - [Bridget] And we are done. - [Julia] Goodness, that's beautiful. - Oh, lovely.
- Yeah. All my favorite flavors. Cherry tomatoes, olives,
arugula, loading it in. Mm, mm. - [Bridget] A little bit of Parmesan. - [Julia] Ugh. That is beautiful. Give me a chair by the sea
and a glass of white wine. (Bridget laughs) Mm. Those are incredible. - They're almost caramelized on the outside.
- Mm-hmm. - The browning. - [Julia] It just is a lovely balance. You have the rich, delicate dumplings, and you have the tomatoes, and then little bit of arugula. - Absolutely. You've got all that
freshness going in there, but then you've got the olives. - Bridget, these are
magnificent. Thank you. - Can't stop eating them. - I can't. (chuckles) If you wanna make this delicious dish, use three eggs to make
the pate a choux paste. Cut the dough from a piping
bag right into the hot water, and saute the gnocchi in
butter until brown and puffed. From "America's Test
Kitchen," a wonderful recipe, Gnocchi a la Parisienne with
arugula, tomatoes, and olives. You can find this recipe in all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes
and our product reviews on our website,
americastestkitchen.com/tv. These are incredible. We hope you enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it. - Don't forget to hit that Like button and subscribe to our channel. - And if you're ready to take your cooking to the next level, head over to americastestkitchen.com, and get a free all-access
trial membership. - While you're there, you can sign up for our free email newsletters
and download our app. - [Julia] With unlimited
access to over 14,000 of our test kitchen recipes
and 8,000 product reviews, you'll have everything you
need to cook and learn. - So I ask, what are you waiting for? - Let's make something great together.
