Low-Carb Profiteroles, Éclairs and Churros

Back in 2003, I came up with a recipe for Choux dough, to make Profiteroles and Éclairs and the recipe stood the test of time! I still use it today with much the same ingredients, except that I use a different brand of protein powder!

 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of water
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp. oat flour
2 tbsp. of vital wheat gluten
1 tbsp. vanilla whey protein powder
1.5-2  eggs, beaten (approximately)
Fillings and toppings as desired (see below)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Melt butter; set aside. Bring water with salt to a full boil; add butter. In the meantime, mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

Dump  the flours into the boiling mix all at once, and stir continuously with a wooden spoon.

It will look lumpy and soupy for a few seconds but keep on stirring - it will come together into a smooth dough!

Turn down heat to medium and cook for a couple of minutes until the mixture pulls away from the pan. Cook for a couple more minutes while moving the dough around and stirring.

Remove from the heat. Place the dough in the bowl or a mixer. Using a wooden spoon or the paddle attachment, mix the dough for a few minutes, allowing it to cool slightly.

Add the beaten eggs gradually, in three or four additions, mixing the dough until it is smooth each time. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl until all of the eggs are incorporated. You may not need the whole two eggs if the mixture becomes too sloppy. The paste should be of a pipe able consistency and not too runny.

Place into a pre-heated oven, on the middle shelf and allow them to bake for 20 minutes - DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN during this time.  They will deflate if you open the oven too early!

After 20 minutes, open the oven door for a few seconds. Reduce the heat and continue to bake until they turn golden brown and crisp. It only took another couple of minutes for me. Remove one from the oven and cut open, it should be dry in the center with no uncooked dough in the middle: if there is, replace and continue to bake.
Cool on wire rack. Cut into half, fill with cream and brush some melted chocolate over the top.
They rise quite nicely even though not quite as high as the choux pastry with regular flour but nicely enough. The taste is pretty much exactly like the regular (high carb) ones.

Yield: 20 mini éclairs or about 25 large profiteroles –– 1 effective grams of carbohydrate per éclair before toppings & fillings. A tad less carbs for the profiteroles.

Topping/Filling Suggestions:
Sugar free Jell-O Pudding in Vanilla flavor (for custard filling)
Homemade low carb custard for filling
Chocolate Mousse
Butter Cream (butter, cream cheese, Splenda, vanilla extract mixture)
Fresh (Splenda sweetened) whipped cream (for topping)

* all the above needs to be chilled thoroughly before piping it into the éclair/profiterole!

Melt some of your favorite sugar-free chocolate with a little coconut oil or butter and brush the éclairs with them!

Now to the Churros!

We’ll be following the same basic method as above, with a few slight variations to the ingredients.

Low-Carb Churros

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of water
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp. oat flour
2 tbsp. of vital wheat gluten

1 tbsp. wheat protein isolate 8000
1 tbsp. vanilla whey protein powder
2 large egg (approximately)

1/4 tsp cinnamon, ground

1 tbsp. granular sweetener

1/8 tsp xanthan or guar gum

For the cinnamon sugar coating:

2 tbsp. Erythritol, granulated or powdered

2 tbsp. Ideal

1 tsp of SugarNot (can be replaced by any other high impact sweetener, except for liquid ones)

1/2 tsp cinnamon (more or less to taste)

Preparation:

Start heating the oil in your fryer.

Melt butter; set aside. Bring water with salt to a full boil in a saucepan; add butter. In the meantime, mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

Dump the flours into the boiling mix all at once, and stir continuously with a wooden spoon.

It will look lumpy and soupy for a few seconds but keep on stirring - it will come together into a smooth dough!

Turn down heat to medium and cook for a couple of minutes until the mixture pulls away from the pan. Cook for a couple more minutes while moving the dough around and stirring.

Remove from the heat. Place the dough in the bowl or a mixer. Using a wooden spoon or the paddle attachment, mix the dough for a few minutes, allowing it to cool slightly.

Mix the sweeteners and cinnamon for the cinnamon “sugar” coating in a separate bowl and set aside.

Add the beaten eggs gradually, in three or four additions, mixing the dough until it is smooth each time. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl until all of the eggs are incorporated. You may not need the whole two eggs if the mixture becomes too sloppy. The paste should be of a pipe able consistency and not too runny.

See the picture above as a guide!

The churro dough will be a little thicker than the profiterole one!

Now transfer your churro dough to a piping bag.

Drop a little ball of dough into your hot oil to see if it’s ready. If it comes right back up to the surface and starts to fry and bubble straight away, the oil is ready.

Get as close to the oil as you can and pipe long strips.

Now you will find out if your dough is the right consistency.

Here’s a dough that was slightly too runny. Once it hit the oil the piping lines disappeared fairly quickly and the whole thing deflated.

They taste good but as you can see it makes for a pretty flat churro and the soft middle was much decreased. Those churros are much smaller and therefore mostly crunchy. This can also happen if you oil is too hot. However, most of the time it’s the dough that is too runny!

If the dough is the right consistency, this is what you’ll see:

The lines are much more defined and the whole thing puffs up in the hot oil!

And the result is the much more defined Churro shape!

The frying takes mere seconds on each side, so be prepared to watch over these the entire time. Flip them as soon as the underside appears to be a golden brown.

Once the frying is done, remove them from the oil and briefly place them on doubled up kitchen roll to drain.

Then place in the sweetener cinnamon mix and shake around to cover!

Repeat until all the churros are done!

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