Steve Wertz wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 05:49:25 GMT, Reg > wrote:
>
>
>>The amount of drying you need will vary. The four minute
>>thing is not good advice. Sometimes it needs a minute
>>or two, sometimes it doesn't need any.
>
> As soon as I put in the flour, it sucked up all the moisture.

But it actually didn't. It looked like it, but what hadn't happened yet
is hydration of the flour. That takes a little time. The flour needs to
take up as much water as it can actually absorb. That's less than it
looks like in this step, and the batter needs to be cooked to get rid of
the raw flour taste and texture.

It means, in function, that you have too much water in the pot. So, the
direction to cook it a bit. That's necessary to get rid of some of the
moisture and promote hydration. The dough ball that forms needs to be
smeared and stirred and generally messed with in the further cooking to
accomplish several chemical and physical things. I understand that it's
like trying to stir modeling clay, but have faith. Stir doggedly and
form that crust in the bottom of the pan, like Julia says, URL below.

> And
> I didn't let the water boil away in step 1 as the butter had
> already been melted in the micro.

No matter. The amount that would have been lost in the boiling is trivial.

> Would baking soda help it rise more?

Not likely. It's not a matrix like a biscuit or quick bread, it's
hollow, so nothing to support the CO2 the soda gives off.

My suggestion is to forget "fixing" the recipe and follow it exactly one
time. Your addition of *more* water was exactly 180° out of synch with
what needed to be done. It's really fairly simple, and once you do it
correctly the first time, the whole thing will snap into place for you.
It'll become one of those "of course" things.

Here's a fine tutorial from Julia, complete with recipes:
<http://tinyurl.com/lqye2>

I do it on the stove through the stirring/drying stage, and then dump it
into my KitchenAid fitted with the paddle. Low speed because you don't
want to incorporate air into the batter. Let it run for a minute or two
to cool the batter down a bit, so the eggs don't cook when you dump them
in, one by one. Add one egg at a time and let the machine run for 30
seconds or more - as much as a minute per egg - to make sure it's evenly
dispersed. Pipe and bake per directions.

Filling is done by either of two methods - a filling tube poked in one
end and a pastry cream piped in ( do it this way for creme patissiere);
or, by cutting them in half horizontally and spooning the filling in (I
do ice cream this way).

Pastorio