A-a-choux! Trivia Quiz

Answer: A train

The following are definitions of 'choux':
1. A cabbage;
2. A kind of light pastry, usually in the form of a small round cake, and will a filling, as of jelly or cream;
3. A bunch, knot, or rosette of ribbon or other material, used as an ornament in women's dress.
Choux is also a commune in the Jura department in Franche-Comte in eastern France

Answer: shoo

According to many sources the word 'choux' is pronounced 'shoo', or 'shoe'. It is a very short, staccato sound - kind of like being cut-off in the middle of saying 'shoo'. It also sounds like the first syllable in the word 'sugar' ie, 'su'.

Answer: Pantarelli

Pantarelli, head chef of the court of Catherine de Medici, is attributed as inventing choux pastry. In 1533, when Catherine de Medici moved to France, she took her entire court with her, including her chefs. Pantarelli invented 'pate a Pantarelli', a hot dough. 'Pate a Popelin' was a later name of the pastry and was used in 'Popelins', a cake made in the middle ages in the shape of a large puff. This recipe, perfected by Jean Avice and Antoine Careme, is now known as the choux pastry that is used today.
Antoine Careme is known as 'The King of Chefs, and the Chef of Kings', Jean Avice was known as the 'Master of choux pastry'.
Martino de Rossi or Martino de Rubeis, called Martino of Como, was Italian 15th century cook and his book 'Libro de Arte Coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) was a historical record of the transition of cuisine from medieval to renaissance time.
Antoine Parmentier refined the art of bread making and the use of the potato in the 18th century.
Guillaume Fouquet de la Varenne was a French chef who became a statesman in the service of Henry IV of France.

Answer: Light, puff pastry

Choux pastry is a very light pastry. It is generally filled with cream or custard and is often topped with chocolate. It can also be filled with savoury fillings such as cheese or tuna and used for appetisers.

Answer: Baking soda

Choux pastry contains only flour, eggs, butter and water. It uses the high moisture content to its advantage. The steam created by the water when heated to a high temperature acts as a raising agent for the pastry. The eggs cook to form a thin crust on the outside of the pastry, making a very light puff.

Answer: Fat content

The higher fat content in pastry contributes to its crumbly or flaky texture. Pastry needs to be light and airy but firm and dense enough to support the weight of its filling.
Some pastries require fat (usually butter) blended thoroughly with flour before adding any extra liquid. This ensures that the flour is adequately coated with fat and is less likely to develop gluten. But, over mixing can result in long gluten strands that can toughen the pastry.
Some light pastries achieve their flakiness by continuously rolling out the dough, spreading it with butter and folding to produce multiple thin layers of pastry.
Pastry can be sweetened, or not, depending on the recipe.
Choux pastry is not sweetened but rather has a 'non-taste'. The pastry is pretty much there to hold whatever naughty, delicious filling it has within it!

Answer: An old-style cooking pot

'Panade' is also written 'panada' or 'panado' and is used as a thickener for soups and sauces, to bind other foods together (such as in Quenelles) and as a baby food.
It is most commonly made from a liquid (such as water, milk or stock), a starchy item (such as bread crumbs, rice flour or flour) and sometimes butter or egg yolk.
Another definition of panade that I found was relating to a Chaucer term for a dagger. It resembled what is now commonly called a 'cutlass'.

Answer: Deep frying

Choux pastry is deep fried in the case of beignets, a kind of French donut. It can also be boiled to make Marillenknodel, an Austrian sweet apricot dumpling, although in this cooking method, the pastry remains quite dense and does not puff.
When making traditional choux pastry, butter is melted in water then flour is added whilst over a low heat. When the dough starts to come away from the sides of the pan, the mixture is removed from the heat and eggs are added slowly and mixed into the dough until it is smooth and glossy. When all ingredients have been combined, the dough is usually piped onto a baking tray and placed in the oven to bake. Once the puffs have risen, they are taken out of the oven and 'popped' to release any steam then returned to the oven to 'dry out'. When the puffs are cooked, they are then cooled and filled - what they are filled with depends on the recipe.
BBQ-ing, steaming or grilling choux pastry would probably just make a mess!

Answer: Baklava

Croquembouches are a high cone-shaped tower made up of profiteroles, and bound with caramel. It comes from the French 'Croque en bouche' meaning 'crunch in the mouth'.
Profiteroles are puffs of pastry (similar to a cream puff - as known in the US) filled with pastry cream and can be served either plain or decorated with chocolate sauce (my favourite!), caramel or powdered sugar.
An Éclair is a long, thin pastry filled with cream and topped with icing. The cream filling is usually either coffee or chocolate flavoured.
Baklava, a typically middle-eastern sweet pastry, is made of layered phyllo (filo) pastry, filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with honey or syrup.

Answer: Madeleines

The Madeleine is associated with the town of Commercy, in France.
There are several stories as to whom invented the 'Madeleine' but general consensus is that it was Jean Avice in the 19th century. He worked as a pastry chef for Prince Talleyrand and invented the Madeleine by baking little cakes in aspic moulds.
Other stories say that either a young servant girl, or a group of nuns, invented the pastry in the 18th century.
Madeleines were made famous in the 20th century in an autobiographical account by Marcel Proust. On his death, his brothers published his autobiography in 1923. He wrote:
"She sent for one of those squat plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell ... I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses ...
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray ... when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane .... and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and garden alike, from my cup of tea."
**quote taken from whatscookingamerica.net