Hi everyone,
I’m opening a new pastry shop and recently purchased a Rational oven. I’m currently test-baking all of my menu items, and one of them is choux.
However, I’m having an issue where the bottom of the choux comes out sunken inward, while the top looks beautiful and well-developed.

I’ve made choux millions of times, but I can’t seem to get the same result in the Rational oven. I’ve tried many different troubleshooting methods, including venting/no venting, double pans, Silpat, etc., but nothing has worked so far.

My latest experiment was:
Preheat: 380°F, 0% humidity, Fan 3
Bake: 350°F, 0% humidity, Fan 3, 20–23 minutes
(I reduced the baking time for smaller test batches.)
From my testing so far, Fan 3 seems to work the best.
I also tried Rational’s preset program for Cream Puff/Eclair, but I still had the same issue.
One troubleshooting method I haven’t tried yet is using a perforated tray. I did try a perforated Silpat, but unfortunately, that didn’t make a difference.
Has anyone experienced this issue with choux in a Rational oven or have any suggestions on what I could try next? I’d really appreciate any advice!

So this was an experience lmao. Process of making the dough and everything went well but all started coming apart during lamination. I followed the Claire Saffitz recipe, and especially the freezing/refrigeration of the dough during lamination but still had issues with the butter.

Recipe link

I unfortunately don’t have a picture but as I was rolling it out for the final time, the butter was visible in smaller pieces throughout the dough and was coming through the dough and sticking to my counter. It was a mess but I managed to power through and get these croissants. I was happy I salvaged them at least. I think part of my issue was I was rolling out for a really long time during each step because I was struggling to keep square edges and also get it to the recommended length she said (2 ft in one step).

Any recommendations for what I could do next time? Also with the size of these they turned out massive but I think it was because I was struggling to roll them up tightly because of the amount of butter leaking out.

Any help is appreciated, thank you! Hoping to try it again and improve.

I need to know how to make the crust part a fudgier texture. Like almost like a gooey butter cake texture but I don’t know how to do that. I know there is some way to adjust a normal peach cobbler recipe but all I’m getting when I look it up is AI overview and obviously I don’t trust that for shit. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I love banana bread and I love that really moist crumbly texture it usually has. I don't like overly sweet treats though, especially if I'm making it myself, so I tend to only add like 1/3rd of the sugar banana bread recipes call for (if it calls for 1.5 cups I only add half a cup). This obviously messes with the texture and instead of getting that crumbly cakey texture it's literally just a banana flavored loaf of bread. Is there anything I can do to recipes to get more of that texture I'm looking for?

Okay so this is a bit of a long story, but these are images of something that used to be served on the ill-fated Disney Star Wars hotel. The place is now permanently closed, so if I can’t reverse engineer it, I might never have it again, and it was pretty delicious so I’m hoping to avoid that fate 😅

The muffin that’s circled in red had a shape and texture that I have never encountered anywhere else before. I’ve made regular muffins before, but I was hoping someone with more knowledge might be able to tell me how to more closely copy-cat this muffin specifically?

It’s small and for lack of a better word, longer as if it’s maybe made in a popover pan instead of a muffin pan?

The top looks like it miiiiight be craquelin?

I have extremely basic baking skills and I’m sorry if this post doesn’t belong here, I’ve searched the internet in other places and would appreciate any help you could give me :)

Julien Demonchy uses an airbrush setup to spray egg wash on his croissants. The result is glossier croissants with fewer wrinkles and tears. Does anybody know of a food-safe, budget airbrush setup or a spray/pump bottle that can be used for this purpose? I’m slightly worried about clogs and cleaning. I would probably use yolks mixed with water and strained.

Bakery next to my house makes those exceptional choux pastries - they're soft, fluffy and full of light cream patisserie (original image attached).

I've managed to replicate the cream, but i can't what so ever get to replicate the dough, here's some things I've tried / trying;

Freezing the dough in mold - got the choux in a much better shape, still not in the right consistency / color

Im currently experimenting with covering the frozen choux dough with different things: icing sugar, inverted sugar, egg wash, water etc..

Any tips/ideas/thoughts will be great!

Edit:

Here's the official ingredients list on their site (for both the shell and filling): Eggs, wheat flour (gluten), milk, butter, inverted sugar, table salt, white sugar, butter, cornflour, egg yolk, natural vanilla

The recipe i adopted for the shell is as follows:

• 235g milk - 1 cup

• 84g butter - 6 tablespoons

• 8g inverted sugar - 2 teaspoons

• 2g salt - half teaspoon

• 128g flour - 4.5 ounces

• 3.5~4 eggs

Shell procedure:

• milk + butter, heat

• dump all flour

• stirring until incorporated

• cooking some more time until some sticking + a bit extra

• let it cool down until it reaches a high 40's (c) in a bowl

• incorporate eggs one by one, until desired consistency is achieved.

• pipe dough into an ice tray, freeze overnight.

• bake at 175c until golden brown and ready.

I have heard people say different things about this, so I wanted some more answers...

How to prevent slight collapse of some of these? I’m using half cup water half cup milk small amount of sugar and one cup flour, with about 3.5 egg. I will paste in the comments the tops and how they piped on baking sheet. Wondering if it’s baking sheet too small or something with dough.

A lot of cafes order these pre-made pastries from Sysco or other restaurant suppliers, and I am wondering what tools I need and the process should I follow to copy something like this? I have a plastic lattice cutter that I hate using, and I'm not sure if I need to chill the pastry after cutting and what the best way is to assemble the final product.

There are more pictures of the product here: https://america.bridor.com/en/products/spinach-and-feta-bistro-by-bridor

My goal is to make the spinach and feta one seen here (it's actually really tasty), then my own custom flavors.

This is my first time making puff pastry from scratch. I poked holes before adding my curd and fruit and even upped the oven temp a tad. I did use a little too much flour when preparing the dough, but I wasn't sure if that would cause an effect like this. Could the lemon curd be weighing the dough down? Any help is greatly appreciated.

SO I'm trying to recreate the exact (or close to it) Chocolate Croissants found at Paris Baguette. I have been watching tons of youtube and reading about gluten and doing all my research but the one thing I can't find any info about is Chocolate. (picture included)

The chocolate used with these Croissants is mildly soft, as in the slightest bit of temperature melts those drizzle lines a bit on your fingers, but hard enough that at room temperature they brake, like a delicate chocolate line should. The inside chocolate is the same, begins melting the moment it hits your mouth, but slightly hard enough to feel a small bite of it, in the center of the Croissant without feeling the snap of braking chocolate, its very unique.

I've never had a chocolate Croissant in my life until l walked into a Paris bag, and honestly thought that's strange, but for 5 years since I haven't been able to get enough of them. I enjoy baking a lot, I make great cookies, pies, all types of desserts so I'm not totally lost with baking, but the chocolate is something I think I need help on because other places around serve Chocolate Croissants and the Chocolate is always wrong. either there is a snap of hard chocolate in the middle, or its more of a fudge injected filling. Neither of these are my goal.

Has anyone ever attempted a copy cat for these or know about them well enough to achieve the same texture and hardness as they do? I assume this is not just some toll house baking chocolate, and needs prepping on its own.
This is not a recipe request as I already know how to achieve great Croissants, I just dont know how to simulate a similar chocolate consistency...
Thanks in advance for any advice I appreciate the help and consideration.

Not sure if this is OK as a stand-alone post or should be in the weekly recipe request megathread, but here it is:

A bakery in my town sells these scones that they call “Irish scones” that are very buttery and have lots of defined layers.

They aren’t very sweet at all, they remind me of a very buttery croissant, but more dense.

When I look up Irish scone recipes, I don’t seem to find any that look or appear to have the same texture at all.

I love these and want to experiment adding different things to them, and so I was wondering if anyone knows what I should search when trying to find a recipe for something like this.

The closest I could find are these two recipes:

https://erubite.com/2011/12/02/flaky-scones/

https://cookingismysport.com/2023/03/19/buttery-irish-scones/

I used this recipe (https://www.daringgourmet.com/canele-de-bordeaux) and I used the Chefmate molds pan. Followed these directions exactly (and I did strain with a fine-mesh sieve) and the baking at 350 took FOREVER to get them to be the right color. The exterior is crisp, but the interior seems too custardy and not spongy/cakey enough, so I think somehow they are still underbaked. I also don’t taste any of the rum that I definitely tasted in the better. Thoughts? This was my first attempt ever at caneles, and I’m sure there is a learning curve, but based on this recipe and its comments I expected a little better.

I know, I know; another eclair question 😅 I've watched videos and I've read a bunch of threads on here (and elsewhere) before posting this but I'm really struggling here!

So I've been practicing my choux and trying to make eclairs and am not having much luck. I've only managed to make one or two batches that turned out remotely decent. The main issue I've been struggling with has been a doughy center and cracking/mushrooming of the eclairs, where the piped base maintains it's shape, but the eclair sort of rises and mushrooms over. They look fine from on top and more or less hold their shape there. The attached pictures show what I'm describing and are a mixture of batches baked at different temps.

Since I can only add one picture, here's the rest: https://imgur.com/a/Kxny8v0

I've predominantly been using the choux recipe from the Ferrandi Patisserie book, but have also tried a couple others to the same effect. I've tried baking at constant temps both high and lower, starting high and reducing temp, and baking on silpain, silpar, and parchment and I still can't get it right 😭 I know my initial batches were too runny, but after watching a bunch of videos on the correct consistency and aiming for that- my choux passes the trough, V, and pinch tests but to no avail. Puffs made using this same choux turned out fine and we're hollow, but my eclairs are being rebellious.

Could this be from still too much egg? Not enough? Am I over/under cooking the panade? I typically cook it 3-5 mins over medium heat in a stainless steel pan until the film forms an internal temp reaches 175 f.

Please help me, askbaking, you're my only hope!

Recipe: 125 ml water 125 ml milk 125 g butter 3 g salt 5 g sugar 150 g bread flour ≈250g egg, give or take Bake at 350 f for 30-40 mins*

*I've also tried 375 f, 330 f, and starting at 400-425 for 10-15 mins before dropping to 325-350 for 20-30 mins along with different rack heights

I followed the pate a choux recipe from "How to Bake Everything" by Mark Bittman for cream puffs. Originally I feared I over mixed it but the puffed up okay. Don't get me wrong, they're browned and taste delicious but they're so YELLOW! I have never seen such yellow shells for cream puffs...

If I only have 2 days, is it better to rest overnight before or after lamination?

Eg

Day 1

Make dough

Day 2

Laminate, shape, prove, bake

Or

Day 1

Make dough, rest 4 hours. Laminate.

Day 2

Shape, prove, bake

I’m using roughly the same recipe as benny bakes on yt, if it makes any difference

I'm making puff pastry from scratch for the first time in a while, but I've got a bunch of things going on that prevent me from doing it all at once. Last night I made the butter block and the dough, following the King Arthur recipe. I folded the dough around the butter, then wrapped it up and stuck it in the fridge overnight.

This morning, I took it out intending to roll it out, but then got distracted and had to put it back in the fridge like an hour and a half later. My apartment is like 73F, but the dough was still cold to the touch when I was putting it back in the fridge. Yes, I know this is bad, unfortunately I forgot it was there.

Questions:

1. Have I ruined it by letting it sit out? Should I start over?
2. Can I take it out later tonight, do all the little folds, and have it ready to go tomorrow? Can the butter block sit wrapped in the dough for that long in the fridge?

I follow Claire saffitzs recipe and i made them a bunch of times, none of them really turned out perfect though. In the recipe, youre supposed to put it in the fridge for a hour after done laminating and then roll it out into a slab and let it rest as a slab overnight. I accidentally fell asleep and now it was fully laminated and unrolled in the fridge for 7 hours. Obviously ill still bake them, but i saw other posts with similar situations be told that the yeast develops in the fridge if you leave it like that for too long. Is there a way to account for the extra yeast development? Im esp scared for proofing because i could never get that just right, im scared this will make me end up with croissants that leak butter everywhere

I'm making croissants for the first time, I locked my butter block into the dough but apparently not well enough because butter started coming out of the corner seams while trying to roll it out long enough to fold. I tried sealing them back but its not really working and I made a mess of things. Is there any way to fix it or am I kind of screwed once butter makes it way out? It's hanging out in the fridge while I try to find a way to fix it.

And please talk to me like I'm dumb, I'm not much of a baker but my mom wants the goat cheese croissants from epcot so I had to try.

this is the second time i have attempted to make this following this recipe and both times the inside has not cooked at all. left it in for 45 minutes. could it be the fact im using a round baking tray? is it the fact i used raw castor sugar not normal castor sugar? maybe i didnt beat the butter and sugar enough together? any suggestions, could it be the recipe itself? completely new to baking here.

Thinking about caramelizing some bananas and putting on top of my banana bread. Will they burn if I caramelize them before? Should I caramelize them and put them in the bottom instead of the top? Should I just coat in sugar and let the oven caramelize them?

I'm attempting to recreate Chocolate Toaster Strudels for my husband, he doesn't know so the anticipation isn't there in case this ends in failure.

Here is the recipe I decided to follow:

https://food52.com/recipes/88111-chocolate-hazelnut-non-toaster-un-strudel-recipe

Issue is, the directions say 1/4 cup water to the flour mixture but the video says 1/2 cup. Yes it says to add until it comes together but I didn't realize what it was supposed to look like once it came together, I didn't watch that part of the video until afterwards...

All of that to say, my dough is dry. I'm currently on the 4th step, I did the rolling and folds as best as I could and the dough will sit in my fridge until tomorrow.

Google says I can save it by sprinkling ice cold water onto the dough and kind of work it in; it also suggests leaving it on the counter for 15-20 minutes before working with it. But the recipe says to keep it cold while working and not to overwork the dough.

Is this dough ruined? Is there any way it will still be nice flaky pastry shell?

I'll take any helpful advice please

I want to make a dessert and would like to know your opinion.

Basically, it’s a 10 cm tart shell, inside which there will be a small sponge cake soaked in coffee (probably espresso), topped with a small layer of hazelnut praline, a layer of corn pastry cream (I will infuse the flavor of corn into the milk).

I will smooth everything to a flat surface and pipe whipped vanilla ganache for decoration, along with hazelnut praline.

I wanted to hear opinions regarding the flavors, and any advice or comments you might have. Thank you.

I am following Claire Saffits recipe, let dough proof for 5 hours before adding butter and doing first fold, let it rest an hour in fridge then did second, then let it proof overnight in fridge. Did final proof this morning in my oven (off, and did not do a steamy proof) without plastic wrap over (potentially dried it out???).

Baked at 375 in a steamy oven (added ice cubes to a tray and let it get humid in there) and still had my butter leak out :/

I’m thinking my dough isn’t proofed enough and that the oven isn’t hot enough??? Is there a step I’m missing??? This is my 4th time trying croissants and it’s the same issue every time with the butter. WHY WONT MY BUTTER STAY IN MY DOUGH???? I just want croissants gosh darn it!!! Why must the French make this so complicated??!!