Most of us have our go-to kitchen gadgets: the occasionally battered tools with the familiar feel that give us the confidence we might otherwise lack. My choux pastry never quite reached the same glossy consistency without the ancient enamel saucepan and “special” wooden spoon combination I had used over 20 years of making croquembouches.
The kitchen utensils we automatically reach for are as idiosyncratic as our thumbprints. A friend once gave me a replacement for my beloved old choux pastry spoon: an “indispensable” alternative stirring implement known as a spurtle. I kept my old spoon and used the spurtle to prop open the door.
