year of choux 01: choux swans

making progress towards my year of choux with the cutest treat for valentine's day

hello everyone! i know, i know, i’m a day late here with the newsletter, but that’s because i was making these choux swans for a little get together last night, and it isn’t one that can be made a day ahead.

if you recall, 2025 is The Year of Choux for me. this means cream puffs, eclairs, paris-brest, and more! with the fires and then the bake sale, i really didn’t have time in january to play around with this theme. this week though, i was determined. what’s more romantic than a light and airy cream puff filled with just-sweet-enough whipped cream? i took it up a notch for a little galentine’s day game night i hosted and turned my cream puffs into swans, and had them “swim” in a raspberry coulis puddle!! it felt very cute, on theme, and i had a lot of fun putting them together.

so fun! so cute! so romantic!

originally, i was going to make eclairs with a little rosewater glaze that was dyed pink and sprinkled with some dried, edible rose petals. i was watching this claire saffitz youtube video to get some info on the technique for piping eclairs, where she also made swans and they were so fun, i had to make them. claire just pipes a regular cream puff, but when i researched other recipes i found this one by prue leith where she pipes a tear drop with a star tip to make them more ‘swan shaped’. i liked this idea because the wings would have good texture. i also loved how she made them in a raspberry puddle instead of chocolate.

here’s how i made the choux swans

i started out with nicola lamb's choux recipe in her book, Sift. I used all purpose flour, but actually wish i used bread flour as she recommends for choux pastries that could use a little definition. my wings didn’t hold their grooves made from the star tip after baking.

i made the dough the day before and let it chill in a ziploc bag until i was ready to pipe the swans, yesterday. this worked totally fine!! i used an ateco 827 star tip to pipe the bodies, getting 14 total. i then piped the necks using a wilton 3 tip, making a few extra because i knew some would inevitably break with how fragile they looked.

i preheated my oven to 425, placed the puffs (not the necks) in the oven and immediately turned the heat down to 375. this is what claire saffitz recommends doing and i definitely think it made a huge difference on the amount of puff i got! my second batch of choux buns went into the 375 oven and weren’t as tall as the first batch. the puffs were done after 22 minutes. i pulled them out, turned them upside down and poked a hole into each with a sharp paring knife to let steam escape. the necks got baked at 350 for 10 minutes until golden brown all over.

swan necks fresh out of the oven. they werent actually this dark but it was getting really dark outside while making these; also, one already broke :(

swan choux buns cooling upside down

once everything was cooled, i cut the top half off the choux bun. the top half then gets cut in half lengthwise to form the wings. i made some whipped cream with 6oz heavy whipping cream, 3 tbsp powdered sugar, sprinkle of salt and a splash of vanilla. using a wilton 1m star tip, i piped the whipped cream onto the bottom half of the puffs, doing long strips lengthwise. i definitely didn’t make enough whipped cream because the wings covered it all. next time, i’d make much more so the swans can be nice and big. the last step is placing the wings and (delicate) necks on! i dusted all the swans with powdered sugar before placing them in their little puddle.

swans in their pond <3

the raspberry coulis is just 12oz frozen, thawed raspberries, blended with 1/4 cup sugar and run through a strainer into a container until needed!

this little project was much easier than i thought, and i was so happy that my choux buns didn’t deflate! they were so tasty, too!

i can’t wait to tackle my next choux pastry, and talk to you all next time! happy galentine’s and valentine’s day!!!! love you all the most