♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today on "America's Test Kitchen"... Dan makes Bridget choux au craquelin, Lisa reviews piping sets, and Bridget makes Julia gnocchi à la Parisienne with arugula, tomatoes, and olives.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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♪♪ -One of the first things that I learned how to make in a commercial bakery was pâte à choux or choux pastry.

Now, this versatile dough can be used to make some of the most iconic things like cream puffs and profiteroles and éclairs.

And then you have croquembouche.

You have crullers.

You have St. Honoré cake.

You have -- -Bridget, Bridget, Bridget, I got to stop you.

You haven't gotten to the best one.

-Which is what?

I think I named them all.

-No, you didn't.

Choux au craquelin.

It is amazing.

So, it's a cream puff, which we all know and love.

-Love it.

-Right?

So it's choux paste filled with a beautiful pastry cream that's lightened a little bit with whipped cream.

And on top is the craquelin, which is basically a cookie dough that melts and drapes over and gets crisp in the oven.

So you have crispy, soft, pastry cream.

It's -- It's everything.

So we're going to start with the pastry cream.

It's going to take the longest to cool down.

-Right.

-Right?

So I'm starting with 2 cups of whole milk in this medium saucepan here.

And I'm going to bring this to a simmer over medium heat.

So while that's heating up, we're going to mix the rest of our pastry cream ingredients together.

-Okay.

-So I have 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour in here.

To that we're going to add sugar.

I have 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt, and we'll just quickly whisk this together.

So, flour's our first thickener.

The second is egg yolks.

So we have six large egg yolks here.

These obviously add beautiful, eggy richness, and they're also going to provide thickening when we -- when we get into the heat of it.

And then I have another 1/2 cup of cold milk here.

Great.

So we'll just whisk this together.

Okay, so this is nice and smooth.

I'm going to get our milk, which is at a nice simmer right now.

And so we're going to start the process of tempering.

-Okay, -So, this is really important.

We've got eggs in here.

We don't want them to curdle.

What we're going to do is basically whisk in about 1/2 cup of our hot milk.

We want to do this slowly here, 'cause we want to bring the temperature of this mixture up a little bit.

So we don't want to flood it with a lot of hot milk at this point.

You'd get curdling there.

So we're just going to whisk constantly.

Get about 1/2 cup in there.

This gently brings the temperature up.

Okay, great.

So that's there.

We're going to add it back to our milk here.

-Okay.

-And this is actually the opposite, where you want to add it really quickly, because this is the hot thing, and adding this quickly will neutralize that and bring it down to a more even temperature.

-Okay.

-So, again, whisking constantly and just flood it right in.

Okay.

So now it is time to cook our pastry cream.

So I'm going to put this over medium heat, and there's going to be a lot of whisking and a lot of stirring, because what you don't want to have happen is flour, egg to sit at the bottom, get too hot, curdle.

-Right.

-And then you don't have a very even mixture.

Takes about a minute.

-Okay.

-Okay, great.

You can see that thickening up a little bit there.

So now at this point, we don't want to risk it anymore.

We're going to go down to medium-low.

So we're going to whisk this constantly for about eight minutes.

We really want to thicken this up.

Beautiful.

-That is a lovely mixture there.

-Lovely mixture, right?

We're actually going to go even thicker than this.

-Oh.

-So I'm going to turn it back up to medium.

-Okay.

-And we're going to whisk for about 1 to 2 minutes.

What we're really looking for is if I drop the pastry cream on the top, it really clumps on top.

So it doesn't -- doesn't blend easily back in.

Alright, let's check it.

And that's great.

Nice and thick.

So I'm going to turn off the heat and slide it off the heat up here.

Now it's time for our last two additions.

So, I have 4 tablespoons of cold butter and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.

-Mmm.

-Whisk this together.

So, we're going to get it into a nice, large, wide bowl.

We want this to cool down kind of as quickly as we possibly can, and a wider bowl is going to do that.

Pastry cream loves to form a skin on top, and we don't really want that in this application.

-No.

-So I'm just going to do a little bit of parchment, lightly sprayed.

That's going to get pressed right on top of it.

So we want this to chill down completely.

It's going to set and thicken up really nicely, and that takes at least 2 hours in the fridge, up to 24 hours.

-Great.

-So, pastry cream is out of the way.

We're going to work on the craquelin.

We're going to start with 6 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter, and to that, we're going to add 1/2 cup of light brown sugar.

I'm going to just use my spatula.

And because we have softened butter, we'll just kind of smear it and combine it.

Now we're going to add 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and a pinch of salt.

And that's it.

So again, just that smearing motion, and we'll get these combined.

Okay.

Beautiful.

That looks great.

-That looks fantastic.

-Okay, so now what I'm going to do is transfer this to a piece of parchment paper, and I'll use my hands to form this into a rough 6-inch square shape at this point.

Great.

Now we've got a second sheet of parchment paper, and we're going to roll this out to 13 by 9.

Okay, great.

So we are at 13 by 9.

That looks great.

Okay, so I'm going to peel off the top piece of parchment now.

Make sure that comes right off.

Okay, so, using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, we're going to cut 24 circles.

We're going to leave them in here.

We're not going to try and take them out right now.

Okay, great.

We have 24.

I'm going to put the parchment paper back on top, and then this whole setup is going to go into the freezer.

It's going to take about 30 minutes for them to firm up, but you can do this up to two days in advance.

Okay, so it's finally time for the pâte à choux, which is arguably the star of the entire situation.

-100%.

-That's where we started this whole thing.

So we're going to do a little bit of prep work.

First, we're going to prep our pan.

So, I have a little bit of spray here, and I'm just going to lightly coat it and then lightly dust it with some all-purpose flour.

Alright.

So our goal is a very thin layer of flour on here, but we start with more so that we can kind of shake it around.

-Right.

-We can get it into all of the crevices.

So, this is way too much flour still, so I'm going to knock it out in this trash can over here, get just a fine amount on there.

So this is going to help, obviously, with sticking.

We don't want these to stick to the pan, but it also offers a really easy way to mark our spots where we're going to pipe the pâte à choux.

So we're going to do 24 circles, and I'm using the 2-inch biscuit cutter that we used before.

It's really just going to give us a landing zone.

And that's pretty much how far the dough will expand out, so you can tell if they're going to be touching.

-Great.

-This is all prepped out, so we're going to set this aside for a minute.

Let's start on the actual pâte à choux.

So in this saucepan here, we have 6 tablespoons of water.

I have 5 tablespoons of butter that have been cut into 1/2-inch pieces.

We have 2 tablespoons of whole milk.

1 1/2 teaspoons of granulated sugar.

1/4 teaspoon of salt.

We're going to bring this to a boil over medium heat.

Great.

We're at a rolling boil, so I'm going to shift this off the heat, and I'm going to add 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour.

And stir that until it's combined.

Okay.

So I'm going to shift it back onto the burner, and we're going to go over low heat.

We're going to cook this for about three minutes.

I'm going to stir and kind of smear it around like this.

We're looking for it to take on an appearance of kind of wet sand and be really shiny.

And during that time, it's going to hit about 175 to 180 degrees.

We've got that nice appearance of wet sand, so I'm going to shut off the heat here.

Alright.

Let's see where we are with the temperature.

Okay, beautiful.

We're at 177, so right in the sweet spot there.

Perfect.

We've hit our temp, and we're going to take this immediately to our food processor.

-Alright.

I'm following you.

-So I'm going to start off with just this mixture in here and run it for about 10 seconds in order to cool it down a bit before we add our eggs.

-Alright.

So while that's going, I'm going to whisk together our eggs.

I have two whole eggs plus an egg white.

Now, that egg white is going to add more water, which adds more lift to it.

And we found that it got a nice, crisp crust because of adding that to it.

-Alright.

-Okay, that's great.

So we have our two eggs plus one extra white in here.

So now we're going to go in with our eggs.

So I'm just going to open up the feed tube here and, while it's processing, stream in the eggs.

We'll go for about 30 seconds here, and then we'll scrape it down.

Okay.

Sometimes the egg and that kind of mixture can sit on the bottom if the blades don't get too low.

-Right.

-So we're just going to make sure that's incorporated.

Awesome.

So we're going to go for about 30 seconds more.

It's going to get really nice and sticky and tacky.

-Mm.

Okay, beautiful.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take the blade out here, and then I've got my pastry bag here, and I'm using 1/2-inch round tip.

And that's pinched off there, so it's not going to come through.

-Right.

-And then I bring it in and scrape it in there.

-Nice.

-The thing that I learned about piping that really made a lot more sense to me was that you're never really squeezing this.

It's all about the twisting action at the top, and that will easily just push everything through to make sure you get it all out.

So we're just going to twist at the top.

It'll just fill in and pop that out.

When we get down there and get good pressure, you can see when it starts to come through.

Okay, so I'm going to go here, and we're going to do about 1 1/2-inch mounds.

Now, they're going to expand as they bake.

-Right.

-So right in the center of our 2 inches.

So we've got 24 nicely piped out.

And don't worry about any kind of imperfections on top.

The craquelin's going to go right on top there and smooth over any problems.

So I'm going to grab those from the freezer.

-Great.

-Okay.

So, Bridget, these are the craquelin that we made earlier, froze.

They've been in there about 30 minutes.

They're nice and firm.

It's going to make it really easy to transfer over.

-He's not lying.

-And for that, I'm going to use a little offset spatula here.

And we'll just go underneath, pick it up, and we'll give each one a little hat.

Beautiful.

So it's time to bake.

We're going to go to a 400-degree oven on the middle rack and bake for 15 minutes.

Then, without opening the door, we're going to drop it to 350, so a little bit more moderate.

We're going to go at that point until they turn really gorgeous golden brown, which takes about 7 to 10 minutes.

I think these are going to look really gorgeous.

-Oh!

-Look at those.

Beautiful browning.

So, we'll get them out.

-Mm-mm-mm.

-The next step here is we want to dry these out on the inside and let the top really crisp.

So you pick them up, and you want to do a 3/4-inch slit in the side of each one of them.

And this slit will allow steam to escape.

Alright.

And last one.

So we've got slits in all of them.

We're going to go back into the oven, which has been turned off, and we're going to prop the door open with a wooden spoon.

So they're going to be in a nice, warm, dry environment, but they're not going to bake anymore.

-Okay.

-That's going to really encourage them to dry out.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So we're going to let them sit for about 45 minutes.

Okay.

So these are beautifully baked and ready to be filled, and we're going to do that with our pastry cream, but we're going to lighten it up with some whipped cream.

-Okay.

-So I have 1 cup of cold heavy cream here in a nice, big bowl.

I'm also whisking side to side.

So you can see we have nice, stiff peaks, which is wonderful.

It's closer in texture to the pastry cream, so it'll combine really nicely.

Now we're going to come over to our pastry cream, and you can see how much this has set up.

We want to combine these two, and we're going to whisk this first.

So we're going to fold this into our whipped cream.

Alright.

So I am just gently folding this together.

You can see it's getting a lot lighter in color.

It's still plenty stiff, because we cooked that pastry cream a long time and got it nice and thick.

Okay, that looks great.

Now, the goal here is to fill these up with about 2 tablespoons of this lovely filling, so really pack it in.

A 1/4-inch tip works great if you have that.

A Bismarck tip, which is nice and long at the end here, this is fabulous for, like, jelly doughnuts and for filling things like this.

Makes a smaller hole and allows you to reach to the back.

And as you pull out, you can really fill it up.

So this is what I'm going to go with.

So we've got our Bismarck tip in there, and we're going to fill this with about 1/3 of the mixture.

-There we go.

-Perfect.

Okay.

So I'm going to go in where I made that slit.

And with the Bismarck, it's nice to go all the way to the back side.

And then as you're filling and you feel it getting heavier, you pull it out.

And that is a good indicator right there, when you start to see it at the opening, but before it's spilling out.

We'll put it on our platter right there.

Okay, so we're going to keep going until all 24 are filled.

This bag is going to empty out, and we're going to keep filling it up as we go.

-Lovely.

-Okay, here we are.

We have 24 perfect choux au craquelin.

And what I want to know, is this going to compete with all those other choux pastry desserts that you mentioned?

-This is straight out of a beautiful pastry case.

This looks great.

-They look beautiful, right?

-Yeah.

-Alright.

But you got to try them.

-Ooh.

-Feel how heavy they are?

So much pastry cream in there.

-Nice.

-Let's dig in.

-Alright.

Mmm!

No runny pastry cream at all.

-No.

That is so good.

-Even though they're packed full of cream, they're nice and light.

It's like a beautiful balance of sweet and a little bit of a savory dough.

-And I just love that craquelin.

Like, it obviously looks beautiful, but it just adds sweetness, and it adds such a nice crunch.

-In the world of choux pastry, this has climbed to the top.

-Ah, yes, that's what I was hoping for.

-You're going to want to make these beautiful little pastries.

Cook a pastry cream until it's nice and thick.

Freeze the disks of craquelin dough.

Use a food processor to make the pâte à choux, and then fold whipped cream right into the pastry cream before filling.

From "America's Test Kitchen," you are absolutely going to want to make this choux au craquelin.

I wonder if you could use this to make, I don't know, something like gnocchi.

♪♪ -If you want to step up your baking game, consider a piping set.

They're perfect for frosting, decorating, and writing on cakes, cupcakes, and cookies.

A good piping set includes pastry bags, decorative tips, and couplers that let you change tips easily.

Now, you could make do with a plain zipper-lock bag with the corner cut off, but a real piping set is going to give you so much more control and more decorative options.

We tested several sets.

Most were packed with redundant and oddball tips, and they lacked some of the six most essential tips, including a small round writing tip, a larger round tip for bigger designs, a large open star tip, a large closed star tip, a leaf tip, and a petal tip.

And then there were the pastry bags.

Cloth bags are a pain to clean and dry, and they hang onto stains.

We prefer disposable plastic pastry bags of about 14 inches.

You shouldn't fill them more than halfway, because you need space to hold onto, so smaller bags are not great.

And with plastic, you can even wash and reuse them.

Now, we did find one piping set to recommend, the Wilton 20-piece Beginning Buttercream Decorating Set for about $13.

It's not perfect.

It comes with only five of the six essential tips.

To round it out, we recommend adding a large closed star tip, a coupler, and 14-inch bags.

Now, with all this in hand, you're going to be piping like a pro.

♪♪ -Today, Bridget's going to cook one of my favorite dishes, gnocchi à la Parisienne, which are delicate little dumplings made with pâte à choux paste and Gruyère.

-You said delicate little dumplings, and here I am.

[ Both laugh ] I love this version of gnocchi.

It's kind of a Franco-Italian dish.

-Mm-hmm.

-This version, you still get light, airy dumplings, and it's really, really easy.

-Yeah, that's why I like it.

-Exactly.

So, it does start with choux paste.

So I've got here 3/4 cup of water in my saucepan.

I just want to get the heat going, because I'm going to add 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter and 3/4 teaspoon of table salt.

While that's coming up to a simmer, I've already fitted a pastry bag here with a 1/2-inch tip.

-Mm-hmm.

-I've got it ready to go, because this is going to be how we shape our gnocchi.

-Very cool.

-Really, really easy.

Alright, so I've got that to the side, and I also have three eggs here.

I'm going to whisk them with a little whisk.

I've got these in a measuring cup because it's going to be easy to add these to the dough later on.

We're at boiling point.

Just slide this off heat just for a moment, and I'm going to add in 3/4 cup all-purpose flour.

So it's 3/4 cup of water to 3/4 cup all-purpose flour.

I'm just going to stir this, get it nice and mixed.

Very, very thick at this point.

-Yeah.

-I just want to make sure to work out any lumps.

Get this kind of worked in there.

-Mm-hmm.

-So I'm going to slide back over and now I'm going to turn the heat to low.

And I do need to stir this the entire time.

But I want to cook this until, as you know, it should start to get really nice and shiny.

That's going to take about two minutes.

Alright.

Seeing a little bit of shine there.

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah, it doesn't look quite as flat.

It's time.

That was two minutes.

Time to kill the heat.

Alright, and we're going to move over to our food processor here.

-Ah, brilliant.

-So much easier than chasing around those eggs in a skillet.

Alright.

So now I want to add a little bit of cheese here.

As I said, it's almost like gougère.

This is 2 ounces of Gruyère cheese.

-Mmm.

-You can use Emmentaler if you want, which is a little bit less sharp.

And a little bit of pepper.

This is 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper.

Just a little dab'll do ya.

So, I've got lid on, and I've got the feed tube off here.

I want to give a little bit of space for the air to come out.

I'm going to let this run for about 10 seconds until the cheese is melted, and it just all comes together.

I'm going to add the eggs here.

Alright.

Eggs are in.

I do want to take a moment and scrape down the sides.

Sometimes the egg gets flung around a little bit.

Alright, so just scraping down the sides.

Lid goes back on, and this time, I'm going to let it run for about 30 seconds until it all comes together.

It's going to be super sticky, though.

Alright.

That is it for the choux paste.

-It's so easy.

I love it.

-It's so easy.

So now I've got my pastry bag, and I've fitted it with a 1/2-inch tip.

Just prepared it, kind of squished the bag down in there so that none of this is going to fall through the bottom.

It's such a sticky mess, it wouldn't do it, but it's a good habit to get into.

If you didn't have a friend helping you, you could use a glass.

-Mm-mm-mm.

-In we go.

-There you are, my dear.

-That's great.

So I'm just going to push this mixture down just a wee bit here.

And I'm going to leave this just like this at room temperature so the mixture can cool a little bit and also become a little bit more firm before we pipe it.

It's gnocchi time.

-Alright.

-This is 4 quarts of water.

Brought it up to a boil.

I now want to lower this down just so that it's at a simmer.

-Now, no salt?

-No salt.

So, I'm going to start to twist this bag, get it going.

I'm going to hold this about 3 inches above the water... -Mm-hmm.

-...at a 45-degree angle.

And as it comes out, I'm going to cut about 3/4-inch lengths.

Isn't that cute?

And if it starts to stick, I just dip the knife right in there.

So about 20 to 30 in here.

We're going to call that between 20 and 30.

And we're going to let these cook.

They're going to float to the top, obviously, and they're going to get a little bit firm.

That only takes about two minutes.

-Okay.

-Alright.

So it's been about two minutes.

They're all floating.

-They look perfect.

-Aren't they cute?

-Yes.

-Alright.

So I'm using a spider skimmer, and I'm going to put these on a greased baking sheet, because they will stick to everything if you don't grease it.

-Mm-hmm.

How many batches does this do altogether?

-About 4 or 5.

-Alright.

-Alright, Julia, it's time to turn our gnocchi into something really special.

We're going to sauté it, which gives it a gorgeous texture.

It's going to puff and turn a little brown, little bit of a crunch.

So, I've got 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter here, and it's melted.

I've got it over medium heat.

Now now I'm going to add all the gnocchi in in one layer, and I'm going to cook this for about six minutes total and, every couple minutes, go in and stir it so it's evenly browned, and they all start to puff.

Julia, look at that.

-Those look so good.

-Oh, look what six minutes will do.

Isn't that beautifully puffed?

-Mm-hmm.

-Going to take them out, put them on the sheet pan.

So, 2 more tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Just going to melt that.

Again, we're dealing with medium heat here.

Shouldn't take too long.

That's just about melted.

I'm going to go ahead and add in 20, exactly 20 cherry tomatoes... -[ Laughs ] -...that I've quartered and exactly 20 Kalamata olives.

I have 2 teaspoons of minced fresh thyme and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Alright.

I'm just going to stir this around, let it cook until the tomatoes start to soften.

That's only going to take about two minutes.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright.

So now I'm going to add a little bit of lemon juice.

Perk things up here.

I've got 2 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

The gnocchi's going to go right back in.

-Alright.

-Ooh.

Love it.

Alright.

So I just want to toss this just delicately until it's glazed.

-Mm-hmm.

-So now I'm going to kill the heat.

I've got 1 1/2 ounces of baby arugula.

Goes right in.

I'm going to stir that in delicately.

And it only takes about 15 seconds for this to wilt.

-That looks spectacular.

-And we are done.

-Goodness, that's beautiful.

-Isn't that lovely?

-Yeah.

All my favorite flavors -- cherry tomatoes, olives, arugula.

-Loading it in.

-Mm-hmm.

-A little bit of Parmesan.

-Oh.

That is beautiful.

Give me a chair by the sea and a glass of white wine.

-[ Laughs ] -Mmm.

Those are incredible.

-They're almost caramelized on the outside, the browning.

-Mm-hmm.

It just is a lovely balance.

You have the rich, delicate dumplings, and you have the tomatoes and then that little bit of arugula.

-Absolutely.

You've got all that freshness going in there, but then you've got the olives.

-Mm-hmm.

Bridget, these are magnificent.

Thank you.

-Can't stop eating them.

-I can't.

If you want to make this delicious dish, use three eggs to make the pâte à choux paste.

Cut the dough from a piping bag right into the hot water, and sauté the gnocchi in butter until browned and puffed.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a wonderful recipe for gnocchi à la Parisienne with arugula, tomatoes, and olives.

You can find this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and our product reviews, on our website, americastestkitchen.com/tv.

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