Choux pastry, or pâte à choux (pronounced: [pɑt a ʃu]), is a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, croquembouches, éclairs, French crullers, beignets, St. Honoré cake, Parisian gnocchi, dumplings and gougères. It contains only butter, water, flour, and eggs. Like Yorkshire Pudding or David Eyre's pancake, instead of a raising agent it employs high moisture content to create steam during cooking to puff the pastry.Choux pastry is usually baked but for beignets it is fried.