Baked, Crispy, Hallow Shells. Sweet, Creamy, smooth, rich & thick Vanilla and Chocolate Pastry Cream! And lightly sweetened billowy clouds of whipped cream! Yumm!! Am I making you crave Cream Puffs? Mark (Mr. Fire) has been requesting these for a while. He likes pastry type desserts. Cream Horns, Puff Pastry, Pies, Cream Puffs, Eclairs, you get the idea. Delectable Dessert! And that it was!
Choux Pastry
200 grams Milk
80 grams Butter, cut into pieces
140 grams Flour
200 grams Eggs (4-5) I used 5
2 tsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1. Preheat oven 400 degrees F.
2. Cut butter into small cubes (This will make melting faster)
3. Sift the flour.
4. In a medium saucepan combine milk, butter, sugar and salt. Bring to a rolling boil. Add all of the flour all at once. Turn heat to low and cook stirring constantly until dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan. This is an important step, as it dries the mixture out before adding the eggs. Let mixture cool slightly in the bowl of a stand mixer running on low for 2-3 minutes. Beat the eggs together in a bowl until well mixed. Adding a little bit of egg at a time, beat the mixture until the egg is completely incorporated before adding more. Please don’t rush this step. The choux pastry dough is ready when it pulls away from the side of the bowl. This could take up to 10 minutes. Spoon dough into a pastry bag, and pipe puffs onto a silpat lined baking sheet. Mist dough lightly with a spray bottle of water. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. When they get brown, turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes more. Puffs should be golden brown, crisp and dry and sound hallow inside. Cut the top of a puff if needed to ensure they are hallow and cooked through. (It’s ok to have a little bit of dough moist, you can pull the dough out of the inside.) Let cool completely. Store unfilled Cream Puff shells in an air tight container or freeze them until needed. Fill with pastry cream or/and whipped cream and powdered sugar.
I like the recipe for Pastry Cream from Joy of Baking. I made two batches of pastry cream one vanilla and one chocolate by adding 2 oz. of chopped bittersweet chocolate.
Whipped Cream
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup Sugar (You can use powdered sugar, but you will need to sift it first.)
1/2 tsp. Vanilla
In a medium bowl, beat whipped cream until semi stiff. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until stiff peaks form. Do not over beat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
