Making Delicious Choux au Craquelin (Even When My Oven Failed Me)

If I had tried following two of Devina Hermawan’s recipes in my previous two baking experiments, last Saturday, I decided to use the recipe of a fellow Master Chef Indonesia graduate. Luvita Ho, the season 4 winner, is widely known as a pastry/bakery guru on her YouTube channel with almost one million subscribers. So many people have endorsed her exquisite yet beginner-friendly recipes. I was tempted to test it for myself.

As a huge fan of choux pastry, I picked her choux au craquelin recipe to follow. Was it easy? Yes, it was relatively simple. Was mine turned out as good though? Well, it didn’t, but I would say that the deviance was on me. I made some mistakes you could avoid by following these additional tips and tricks:

As instructed in the video, I started my day by making the diplomat cream. It must be chilled in the refrigerator for quite some time, so it's best to do it early.

Tips💡: I suggest that you stir the milk while boiling it or else the cream won't be that smooth.

After putting the diplomat cream into the refrigerator, I started to work on the craquelin.

Tips💡: Follow every step in the video. Do not skip a thing.

My craquelin was safely stored in the freezer. I moved on to the choux.

Very Important Tips💡: Please wait for the dough to come to room temperature before mixing it with the eggs. I didn't, so my choux didn't puff up the way it should be.

I need to learn my way with piping bags. My uncooked choux didn't look like the ones in the video (I know what we all think but let's ignore it, ok?).

I was glad that the craquelin dough managed to hide the imperfection. It looked just fine (overall) after I concealed the inharmonious choux.

My choux au craquelin, or its mini version, was done! It tasted really delicious. My only qualm was that I couldn't bake it evenly—the time it took for my choux to be perfectly baked didn't align with the burnt bottom. 

I was quite sure that it had something to do with the fact that I used a gas oven instead of an electric one, but my family said that the choux tasted delicious, so I was happy.