Cream puff failure

[u/Fabulous_Theme8353]

I’m in a culinary class and we’re making cream Puffs tommorow so I figured I could get some Practice in tonight. I got all my ingredients prepped and did the recipe almost exactly to a T. The recipe called for one cup water, one whole stick of butter, 1/2 tsp salt, and one cup of flour. I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to add in some sugar for a sweater dough and put in a full tablespoon. The recipe we got told us to melt our butter in boiling water so I put my butter (I used two half sticks of land o lakes butter) in the boiling water and let them melt completely. Shortly after I added in my sugar, salt, and flour all at once and started stirring, soon after though my dough just looked like applesauce and had the same consistency. I stirred for over ten minutes on different heats and nothing changed. I ended up adding more flour which sort of helped but in the end my dough still looked like applesauce. I kept chugging on and added my eggs but still afterward, though more stiff, it still looked like applesauce. I cooked the dough for the length and temp required and this was the final product. What did I do wrong? Edit: I forgot to attach the photo before posting, if needed I can hopefully get the photo to anyone that needs it.

[u/abiophylliac]

Choux is a ratio of 2:1:1:2 , water/butter/flour/egg. Try weighing your ingredients so 200g water 100g butter, 100g flour (2g salt?) , 200g egg (more or less). I think you added too much flour. Cook your water butter flour well, 3-5 minutes stirring till dough looks smooth slightly greasy. Beat in mixer for 2-3 minutes cooling and releasing steam, add egg one at a time until dough is the consistency of a slightly thin pudding/is visibly glossy/ can test with spatula dipping and taking out - gravity will pull batter down and a thin v peaked shaped batter should stick. If not runs off fast may be too much egg if thick and sticky may be too little egg. This is the critical part generally and knowing consistency you need is key. Sometimes we add more or less egg depending on flour strength/ water content etc. pipe dough into size you need, 20g is usually a good size for me, powder sugar or make Craquelin top, bake for 375-400 for 20-30 until set and I will turn down oven to 325-350 for another 10- or depending to dry out and stop coloring. Good luck

[u/texnessa]

Problem number one: " did the recipe almost exactly to a T."- this isn't ever an exact recipe- age of flour, how much moisture is cooked out, time is all over the place, age and size of eggs are all variables. Visual and auditory clues are better.

Here's a detailed post on the whole process. I've made these by the thousand professionally, they take a bit of finesse to start.

[u/JM062696]

I’ve made cream puffs multiple times successfully. It sounds like there either wasn’t enough flour to begin with, maybe a little too much water, or maybe you didn’t cook it on a high enough heat on the stove. It will start out kind of like a wet dough consistency, but as it cooks and more water evaporates it’ll kind of turn itself into like a mound of dough and it’ll also leave a film on the bottom of your when you move it around. If you see the film you’re good to take it off the stove top and let it cool slightly. I always do the first part with a wooden spoon, as soon as I get it off the heat I like to break it apart a little bit so it cools quicker and then I add the eggs one at a time and I switch over to my hand mixer make sure each egg is extremely well incorporated before you add the next one in

One other thing you could try, and I don’t know if this had any bearing on why yours failed, but add the sugar to the water and butter mix, add the flour on its own when it’s at a rolling boil.