Swan Lake Pastries

Who said the only form of art is a painting? Baking is also an art involving the correct blend of ingredients, the right balance of flavours and textures in order to concoct a masterpiece. A masterpiece that all will want to ferociously devour, yet would hesitate in doing so, because of it's impressive countenance and the dedicated craftwork it took to assemble. The idiom 'feast one's eyes upon' would come to perfect use in this instance.

And that's exactly what happened when I made these 'Swan Lakes'. My mother refused to eat it. "Can't I just keep it on the kitchen worktop to look at? It's like a mini swan statue!" She then gave in to the luring aroma of the Chantilly cream.

The swans, made of Choux pastry consist of sliced strawberries, Chantilly cream and a raspberry coulis. They are simple to make, the only difficult part is getting the pastry right.

For the Choux pastry:
120g plain flour
75g butter
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
175ml water.

• Melt the butter in a pan with the water and bring to heat, making sure that it doesn't boil.
• Take it off heat and add the sifted flour in and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until it turns into a smooth pasty.
• Place it back on the heat and beat gently until it turns into a glossy dough.
• Leave the dough to rest until it is cool.
• When you have impatiently waited ages for it to cool down like I did, add in the eggs bit by bit and mix away until it resembles a thick paste (you have to pipe these!)

• Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a plain nozzle and pipe long 'S' shapes .
• Pop em in the oven for 15 minutes or when you see them turn nice and crisp.
• With the remaining dough, spoon ovals for the body and place in the oven for half an hour.
• After half an hour open the oven door to let out the steam (these swans have some hot bodies you know!) Bake for 5 minutes.
• Pierce a small whole in your oval to let steam out and bake again for 5 minutes until brown.

It's a long process, but worth it when it comes out correctly!
This pastry can be used for eclairs and Profiteroles too :)

Chantilly cream:
250ml double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Add all the ingredients together and whip away, but make sure to stop when stiff peaks form!

Raspberry coulis:
250g fresh raspberries
1tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp icing sugar

Place all the ingredients together in a food processor and blend away. Mine however, came out thicker than I preferred as I kept adding more sugar to make it sweeter.

With all the components made all you need to do is assemble your swan. Pour the coulis in your serving plate, then make sure to cut the base and fill with strawberries and pipe the cream with a star shaped nozzle and then add the wings!

There you go, simple right?

They're beautiful and oh so scrumptious to eat. My family loved them! :)

The Dainty Cook x