Learn how to make this French cookie choux or known as choux au craquelin in pandan flavor and filled with creamy coconut gula Melaka pastry cream. A nice twist to this delicious classic French pastry.
I have been wanting to make choux au craquelin for years but never got to do so until now. After successfully making the basic choux pastry several times, I finally mustered up the guts to do choux au craquelin.
What is choux au craquelin?
Just saying the whole name makes you feel all fancy isn’t it? 🙂 Choux au craquelin (shoo-o-krat-ker-lan) is a popular French pastry made with the basic choux pastry (or pâte à choux). Choux pastry is a dough made with flour, sugar, water, eggs, butter. The high-moisture dough combined with the heat from the oven creates steam that puffs up the pastry, making the inside custardy and hollow while the outside is crisp. With choux au craquelin, a piece of flattened cookie dough is placed on top of the pâte à choux and then baked together. The cookie dough will spread and crackle as it bakes, covering the pastry with its attractive crackles.
My twist on the classic choux au craquelin
Craquelin: Instead of using regular white sugar, I use coconut sugar. You can also use light brown sugar. It adds a nice caramel note to it
Pastry cream: Instead of vanilla pastry cream, I use coconut milk and coconut sugar to mimic the taste of Hainanese kaya jam
Choux: I added pandan juice and pandan essence to make pandan choux pastry. So you have pandan, coconut, and coconut sugar flavors in this choux au craquelin 🙂
How to make pandan choux au craquelin with coconut pastry cream
1. Put all ingredients, except for the butter in a saucepan
2. Whisk to combine until you don’t see any more lumps.
3. Cook over low heat and keep whisking.
4. The mixture thickens and coat the back of your spatula. Add butter and whisk until butter melts. Turn off the heat and add the vanilla extract and stir to combine. It thickens further when it cools down
5. Cover with a cling wrap touching the cream directly so it won’t form a “skin”. Keep chilled in the fridge for at least 2 hours
6. Prepare the craquelin. Cut the butter into small cubes
8. Add coconut sugar, salt, and flour
9. Combine until you get a moist dough
10. Scrape the dough onto parchment paper and pat to form a disc shape. Cover with another parchment paper on top and use a rolling pin to roll into 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick. Slide it onto a baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes
11. Then use 1 1/2-inch cookie cutter or a round glass to cut out 20 rounds. Arrange on a baking sheet and freeze again for at least 30 minutes or until ready to be used. They can be kept frozen and used straight from the freezer
12. Prepare the choux pastry. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C) for a conventional oven. If you have a convection oven, please lower the temperature by 20 degrees. Position one rack 3rd from the top and another rack 3rd from the bottom
13. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper but we will bake one tray at a time. You don’t have to do this, but I draw about 1 1/2-inch circle about 2 inches apart so I can pipe the dough within that circle. This is optional
14. Bring pandan juice, pandan essence, coconut milk, butter, sugar, and salt to a rapid boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat
15. Add the flour all at once and lower the heat to medium-low and stir quickly
16. You will see a light crust form a the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring for another 2 minutes to dry the dough. The dough should be smooth. Remove from the heat
17. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes to cool down a bit as we don’t want to cook the eggs later
18. Add the egg, one at a time. Mix until fully combined before adding another one
19. When you lift the dough up with a spatula it should be able to form a long V trail that eventually will break off. If it doesn’t, the dough may be still too thick and if you have used up all the eggs in the recipe, you may need to add a bit more. Beat one more egg and then add 1/4 of it and mix it to the dough again and try to see if you can get that V trail
The dough is still too thick as the V just hangs and never break off
This is the consistency we want
The V trail hang and then stretch and break off
21. The dough needs to be used immediately. Transfer it to the piping bag
22. Pipe the dough about 1 1/2 inches wide, about 2 inches apart at a 90-degree angle and stop applying pressure and swirl the tip away to stop the piping
23. Place one frozen craquelin on top
24. Put the baking sheet on the positioned rack, one baking sheet per rack. Bake for 30 minutes and do not open the oven door during this time. The choux may not puff up as they should when cool air entering the oven all of the sudden
25. When they are done baking, turn off the oven and open the oven door and let the choux cool down inside the oven for 15 minutes. This helps to prevent the choux from deflating
26. Remove from the oven and use a small knife to poke a small hole on the bottom of the choux to allow steam to escape and let them cool down completely on a cooling rack before piping the filling inside
27. Only pipe the filling into the choux pastry when you are ready to serve them. Transfer the filling to a piping bag fitted with 3/4-inch star tip nozzle or regular round nozzle. Pipe the filling inside the choux and serve immediately
A properly done choux pastry will have custardy and hollow inside while the outside is crisp. With its hollowness, it’s perfect to fill it up with any pastry cream or filling you desire
How to store the pastry cream
The pastry cream can be stored in the fridge for 3-4 days. Simply put the cream in an air-tight container, cover with a cling wrap touching the cream directly, and then cover with a lid.
How to store the choux au craquelin?
Choux pastry is the best on the same day it is made, but leftover happens of course. I recommend wrapping the choux au craquelin with plastic wrap and put them in a freezer-friendly container or bag and keeping them frozen. Simply reheat at 350 F (180 C) for about 5 minutes and then let them cool down before filling with pastry cream or the cream will melt.
Did you make this pandan choux au craquelin recipe?
I love it when you guys snap a photo and tag to show me what you’ve made 🙂 Simply tag me @WhatToCookToday #WhatToCookToday on Instagram and I’ll be sure to stop by and take a peek for real!
Pandan Choux Au Craquelin (with Coconut Pastry Cream)
Ingredients
Please weigh ingredients by weight to be as accurate as possible:
Coconut pastry cream:
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 240 ml canned coconut milk full fat, not lite version
- 60 gr yolks about 3 yolks
- 50 gr coconut sugar
- 22 gr cornstarch
- 25 gr unsalted butter (room temperature)
Coconut sugar craquelin:
- 32 gr unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 50 gr coconut sugar or use light brown sugar
- 43 gr all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Pandan choux:
- 120 ml pandan juice or use water if you don't want to use pandan juice
- ½ tsp pandan essence
- 57 gr unsalted butter
- ½ Tbsp coconut sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 70 gr all-purpose flour
- 100 gr eggs (room temperature) about 2 large eggs without the shell, you may or may not need a bit more
Instructions
Prepare the cream:
- Put all ingredients, except for butter in a saucepan. Whisk to combine until you don't see any more lumps. Cook over low heat and keep whisking. The mixture thickens and coat the back of your spatula. Add butter and whisk until butter melts. Turn off the heat and add the vanilla extract and stir to combine. It thickens further when it cools down
- Cover with a cling wrap touching the cream directly so it won't form a "skin". Keep chilled in the fridge for at least 2 hours
Prepare the craquelin:
- Cut the butter into small cubes. Add coconut sugar, salt, and flour. Pulse a few times until you get a moist dough
- Scrape the dough onto parchment paper and pat to form a disc shape. Cover with another parchment paper on top and use a rolling pin to roll into 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick. Slide it onto a baking sheet and keep in the freezer (not fridge) for at least 30 minutes
- Then use 1 1/2-inch cookie cutter or a round glass to cut out 20 rounds. Arrange on a baking sheet and freeze again for at least 30 minutes or until ready to be used. They can be kept frozen and used straight from the freezer
Making the choux pastry:
- Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C) for a conventional oven. If you have a convection oven, please lower the temperature by 20 degrees. Position the rack in the middle of the oven
- It is important that the eggs are at room temperature. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper, but we will bake one tray at a time for the best result.
- You don't have to do this, but I draw about 1 1/2-inch circles about 2 inches apart so i can pipe the dough within that circle. This is optional
- Bring pandan juice, pandan essence, butter, sugar, and salt to a rapid boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat. Add the flour all at once and lower the heat to medium-low and stir quickly. You will see a light crust form a the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring for another 2 minutes to dry the dough. The dough should be smooth. Remove from the heat
- Let the dough sit for 5 minutes. Add the egg, one at a time. Mix until fully combined before adding another one. When you lift the dough up with a spatula it should be able to form a long V trail that eventually will break off. If it doesn't, the dough may be still too thick and if you have used up all the eggs in the recipe, you may need to add a bit more. Beat one more egg and then add 1/4 of it and mix it to the dough again and try to see if you can get that V trail
- You don't want the dough to be too runny or too thick. Runny dough will make flat choux that won't really puff up or worse deflate. This is the tricky part with making choux and if you get the consistency right, the choux will turn out as it should.
Pipe the dough:
- Transfer the dough to the piping bag. Pipe the dough about 1 1/2 inches wide, about 2 inches apart at a 90-degree angle and stop applying pressure and swirl the tip away to stop the piping. Place one frozen craquelin on top. I pipe about 10 doughs for one tray
- I made a horrible mistake in the video by piping too close and they all stick to each other during baking, but luckily they turned out okay, but some weren't perfectly round! oh well! learned from my mistake 🙂
Baking:
- I recommend baking one tray at a time. I have tried baking two trays but the results weren't good. Some choux didn't puff up as they should. Put the baking sheet on the positioned rack. Bake for 30 minutes and DO NOT open the oven door during this time
- When they are done baking, turn off the oven and open the oven door and let the choux cool down inside the oven for 15 minutes. This helps to crisp up the choux
Cooling:
- Remove from the oven and use a small knife to poke a small hole on the bottom of the choux to allow steam to escape and let them cool down completely before piping the filling inside
- Then you can turn the oven bake on to let it reheat while you are piping the next tray of choux pastry. I don't recommend piping ahead while waiting for the first tray to bake. It's a bit inconvenient, but it's to assure that your second tray turn out great too
- If you only have one tray, make sure the same tray you use to bake second batch, has cooled down to room temperature and not warm anymore
Pipe the filling:
- Only pipe the filling into the choux pastry when you are ready to serve them. Transfer the filling to a piping bag fitted with 3/4-inch star tip nozzle or regular round nozzle. Pipe the filling inside the choux and serve immediately
