A relatively new user wrote an answer to the question Why do my pastries come out flat when I use butter instead of margarine?. I found that the post had two problems:
- It was unstructured, so hard to read
- It provided some other recipe instead of explaining what is wrong with the OP's question.
So I deleted the post, seeing it as "not an answer".
The user who answered finds that the post was an extension of the existing recipe, and thus provides a direct answer. He/she is new and probably not aware of Meta yet, so I decided to ask for community input myself: Should this answer be undeleted? Also, if you think you should, you are welcome to suggest readability improvements.
This is the text of the disputed post:
How funny since I learned this same receipe when I first got married 40 years ago. Here is the secret I learned. First, you need to have everything at room temp, very important for the eggs. Once you add the the butter, yes butter you have cut up to the water that is boiling and it melts, add the cup of flour quickly to the water and with a big spoon mix it fast and it forms to a ball. Get it off the heat. Now here is the thing. Get a mixer and add each egg, one at a time, and mix it throughly and add the next one and again mix it but don't over do it. Do it quickly. Now with either a pastry bag or I do it with a spoon, put rounds of the mix and drop on a cookie sheet with parchment paper, scoop up approx 1 1/2 inch spoonful to 2 inch spoonful so you will have anywhere of 18 to 22. Do not play with these. Put in preheated oven of 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Depending on the size is how long they bake. When you take out of the oven, they look beautifully puffed, but if not baked properly, will start to deflate. So depending on the size, your oven and your patience you will master this. Even if they deflate, it is ok. Cool, cut then in half, fill them with a nice custard cream, top them off with the lid, either make a nice chocolate ganache or frosting or if you are lazy or tired, sprinkle with powdered sugar or cocoa powder. You can also make whipping cream but once you make a good cream custard, no matter how badly deflated the puffs are, people don't usually notice with something on top. It's always been a hit and long ago I used to make only 12 and filled them up with my own special cream and they were the size of baseballs, topped with homemade frosting and I hope you try it. If you open the door at the 20 minute mark to turn the cookie sheet, it is ok and you get a idea if you need to go 10or even 15 to 20 more minutes depending on the softness of the puff.
