I have to provide a precise fact :Benjamin Gauffre, one of my good friends and the  Communications Manager for La Maison du Stevia, was kind enough to send me a sample of stevia powder.
Stevia is a natural sweetener, unlike aspartame which is a synthetic sweetener and which has a negative effect on pancreas.
A plant -based sweetener cannot be bad for sure and, above all, it is zero calorie !


I therefore decided to test stevia on my pastry cream, following Benjamin’s advice : use a tiny amount of it, a touch of  stevia (hardly 2mm) on the point of a knife and you get the sweetening capacity for some hundred grams. This is brilliant !  I will come back with a more precise commentary on stevia as I received a lot of information on it.

http://www.les delicesdebaia.com/2010/06/choux-la-creme-la-stevia.html


To make  some 20 small choux buns (flavoured with strawberry, coffe or lemon ) :

2.5g sugar
2 eggs
55g butter
6.5cl milk
6.5 cl water
70g  sifted flour
½ teaspoonful of salt

Simmer the milk with water. Add the butter, salt and sugar. Then add the flour and stir  briskly till the paste dries up (takes 2 minutes). Remove from the heat  and when the paste has cooled  down, add the eggs one after the other while stirring rapidly. Bear in mind that if the paste has not cooled down , your eggs may cook at the contact of the heat.

Pour the batter into a piping bag and mould it into small heaps on a sulphurized baking tray.

Bake at 160°C for 25 minutes.The choux must have a golden brown colour.

In the meantime, prepare the pastry cream :

1 egg
250 ml milk
a touch of stevia(on the point of a kniffe)
35 g flour
1 vanilla-flavoured sugar packet

In a bowl, mix the egg, stevia, sugar and flour . Boil the milk and pour the batter on it.
Gently stir over a low heat  to obtain a thick batter.

Then pour the thickened batter into separate bowls if you wish to have different flavoured ones( with pistachio, strawberry,chocolate, coffee etc…). If not, pour the whole  cream into one dish. Cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.

When the cream is cool , use a piping bag to fill in the choux buns by making a hole in their base or on top, as I find the latter more convenient for the remaining work.
Then ,  prepare the fondant which decorates the choux : I put some fondant into a small tupperware that I plunge into simmering water. This makes it a more fluid fondant.You have to stir a lot. When the fondant is liquid,take the tupperware away from the simmering water and dip each choux bun into the fondant, with its top down so that the excès of fondant drains away. You will often  have to put the fondant back  in a bain-marie so that it remains liquid.

If you want to make choux buns with a strawberry , lemon or coffee flavour, add some pink or yellow colouring or coffee extract to your fondant.
Then put the choux buns into the fridge.


 Have fun and enjoy !