Blackforest Choux Pastry (with bonus cute doggy version!)

Due to the ongoing Covid situation, we are still unable to have an in-person session for our Culinary Arts Ministry event by Adam Road Presbyterian Church. So I prepared a full-length video tutorial on how to make these elegant blackforest choux pastries, with a cutesy option as well! 

Elegant version complete with gold dust for added posh! 

Cutesy doggy version with exact same fillings but different presentation! 

Here's a peek at the delectable filling that goes into each pastry! 

Below is a screenshot of the video tutorial for an explanation of what filling/topping goes into each pastry. 

I tried my best to include the essence of the classic blackforest cake into choux pastry. But everyone has their own preference so feel free to adjust amount of certain ingredients when I make mention of it where appropriate. Certain things like ratio of key ingredients shouldn't be messed around with (may cause a failure if you adjust too much) but where fillings are concerned, feel free to adjust according to taste. 

Some of you may want to prepare ingredients in advance, ahead of the event, so here are the list of ingredients for the respective components. 

Chocolate craquelin is a high butter content cookie dough that gives the pastry a wonderful crunch and helps it to puff up nicely and evenly during baking. 

I chose to flavour the pastry case as well with Valrhona cocoa powder. If making plain cases, replace cocoa powder with flour. 

Special notes for filling ingredients:

-Choose the type of whipping cream you prefer according to taste and technical ability. I explained this in detail in the video tutorial. In summary, there is a trade-off between stability/ease of handling and taste. You may use dairy, non-dairy or a combination of both. 

- Use cherries that are best tasting. You may use canned cherries if fresh cherries aren't in season. Amount of sugar may be adjusted according to how sweet /sour your cherries are. I recommend using Morello or Maraschino cherries with no red colouring added if possible. 

- You don't have to buy cherry jam if you have richly flavoured syrup from canned cherries. I reduced the canned cherry syrup to remove water content and to intensify the cherry flavour.

- I demonstrated the non-alcoholic version. If you like your blackforest boozy, feel free to add Kirsch. 

Here's a pretty view of freshy baked chocolate choux au craquelin! 

Without further ado, this is the video link to the event with full length video tutorial and an evangelistic sharing! Do note that the video will be available only at and after the event date on 28 Nov 2021 at 2pm.

With love, 

Phay Shing