Excursions in Cream Puffs

Last night I went to a Pocket Potluck! Everyone had to bring a dish that was in a pocket - some examples the host gave were: dim sum, empenadas, perogies, etc. I decided to do cream puffs after watching the documentary, Kings of Pastry. I was enthralled by that movie, but that's another story....

This is the second time I made cream puffs. Last Sunday, I did a dry run for the pocket potluck. They look like they could be difficult but they are really easy and not too time consuming.

I got the recipe and original idea from this blog, Anna the Red. Her Totoro Cream Puffs are so cute! Her blog is my new favorite thing. I also like to make cute food. She does great step, by step pictures and directions, definitely check out her page.

I started writing a blog because of the recipes I find and use, I usually edit them and then when try them again, I don't always remember what I did the first time. I'm also supposed to be doing my taxes, starting a blog sounded like a much better idea for this afternoon. So here I go....

Cherry Blossom Cream Puffs

For last night's cream puffs I made custard cream and chocolate mousse first for the filling. I used the chocolate mousse recipe from allrecipes.com - my favorite source for recipes.

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
•   their recipe calls for 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract - next time I'm not going to use this much. I have the vanilla bourbon extract from Trader Joe's and it was too alcoholic tasting. Next time 1/2 teaspoon.
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Directions

1. In a small heavy saucepan, melt chocolate chips with water over low heat; stir until smooth. Stir a small amount of hot chocolate mixture into egg yolk; return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla. Cool, stirring several times.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat whipping cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar; beat until soft peaks form. Fold in cooled chocolate mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. 

I also used Anna the Red's custard filling recipe. Really easy. Her step by step pictures were really helpful

Ingredients

- 1 1/4 cup of milk
- 1 whole egg (beaten)
- 2 TBS of sugar
- 2 TBS of flour
- a little bit of vanilla essence - I didn't use the vanilla essence - I used a 1 1/2 teaspoon of coconut rum. It was good! After all the time on the stove cooked off the alcohol and left a nice coconut flavor. I might try adding a bit more rum next time....

1. Put beaten egg, milk, sugar, and vanilla essence in a sauce pan and heat it at medium temperature. Put flour in and start stirring with a whisk.

2. Keep stirring with a whisk for 13~15 minutes until it becomes creamy. 

3. Once it’s like thick cream, put it in a bowl put plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard and let it cool down.

4. After it’s cooled down, put it in the fridge until you use it.

I put half the custard in one bowl and half in another. In one of the bowls I put 1 drop of red food coloring for the pink ones.

Then for the cream puffs! I doubled the recipe for the potluck. Again check out Anna's pictures.

Ingredients

10 tbls and 2 tsps of water
8 tablespoons (1 stick) of unsalted butter 

4 whole eggs (large, beaten) and 1 extra egg on standby to add the dough if it’s too thick (i used the extra egg both times)
4 pinches of salt

3/4 cups of all-purpose flour (sifted if you have a sifter)

food coloring (optional)

Before you start…
- Have custard cream made and cooled down in the fridge. 

- Beaten eggs.

- Sifted flour. (not absolutely necessary, but this will definitely help make the puffs puffier) - i didn't do this and it turned out just fine
- Pre-heat the oven at 400 degrees F.
- Put parchment paper on a pan

1. Put water, butter and salt in a sauce pan and bring it to boil.

2. When it starts boiling, take the sauce pan off the stove, put the flour in all at once and stir it very well with a spatula.

3. When the pan is cooled down enough that you can touch the pan’s bottom with a finger, add 2 TBS of the beaten egg in and stir it well.

4. Keep checking the texture as you add a TBS of beaten egg at a time. The dough is ready when the dough is thin enough that when you scoop the dough up, a lump falls after 3~5 seconds, making a triangle shape from the spatula.

You don’t have to use all of the egg if the dough is ready before you use up the egg. If the dough is still hard after using all of the egg, beat another egg and keep adding a TS of beaten egg until the dough is ready. I repeat, one TS of it at a time and stop adding egg when the dough is thin enough. Many cream puff recipes may not mention adding the egg little by little, but each egg is different in size and just a little too much egg can ruin it. 

5. When the dough is ready, put it in a ziploc bag (or pastry bag if you have one) and cut a corner of the bag.

Tips: put the bag in a glass and put the dough in. It makes it easier to keep the bag steady.

6. Hold the bag 1/4 inch away from the pan, squeeze the dough out straight down (1.5 inch diameter), and slowly move 1 inch to the side (still squeezing), and move it back, and squeeze one more time and pull the bag straight up. Depending on the shape you want to do you can make a body and then add ears. This last batch I made flowers, inspired by DC's Cherry Blossom Fest. Then you make a flower shape and add a bit more to the middle so it puffs up. Make sure to make the petals pointy and far apart because the spread out. Next time, I'll be more careful of that.

7. Make sure each dough is at least 1 inch away from each other.

8. With a wet finger, gently push down any pointy parts on the dough.

9. Put it on the oven and baked it for 10 minutes at 400 degrees F. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN!

10. Lower the heat to 350 degrees, and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes. For my oven it was 10 minutes, Anna suggested 15. 400 degrees for 10 minutes is to make the cream puff puffy, 350 degrees F for 15 minutes is to dry the inside of the cream puff

11. Take it out, remove the puffs from the pan while they’re still warm.

12. Make a slit in each cream puff and let them cool down. If it’s moist inside, remove moist dough from inside, and stick it back into the turned-off oven. 

13. For the flowers, I cut a circle in the middle and used the pastry bag to fill in the chocolate mousse and the pink custard. I ran out of time to empty the pastry bag, refill with the white custard (had to get to the party!) you can definitely see the difference between the pastry bag filled cream puffs and the spoon filled ones.

Last Sunday's cream puffs were cuter. I kept to Anna's idea for the Totoro ones and made up the owl ones. 

I made the eyes in an easier way than her blog. I just took a sharp knife an cut off the tips of white chocolate chips. Then I melted some other chocolate chips and painted the "irises" in. Next time I'll use a pastry bag for all those chocolate eyes, whiskers and wings. I "glued" the eyes on with some melted white chocolate chips.

 Also think the owls could look like the pacman ghosts easily. Maybe next time I'll make a jagged line across the bottom with chocolate and make some pacman shaped ones!