Cream Puffs (pate a choux pastry and fillings)

    I feel like no matter what bakery you go to you find cream puffs. However, I come from a small drink only family so I was always stuck looking and wondering what they tasted like. Then, one day when we were at my grandmas house, she had a container of frozen cream puffs she had bought from Costco. They were so good! At the time I still lived in the college dorms so I wasn't doing a lot of baking and the cream puffs were forgotten. 

    This week I was watching a holiday baking competition and they were given the task of making a holiday croquembouche. This word is French for "crunch in the mouth". A croquembouche is a tower of cream puffs that are all stuck together with a crunchy caramel or sugar. They are also known as a profiterole or a cream puff tower. As they were making these tasty looking towers I remembered the frozen cream puffs I had at grandmas house and decided then and there I would see if they're really as hard to make as the competitors on this show made them look. 

    I discovered that they are. I made this five different times before I figured out a good recipe! I also discovered how important process pictures and fully reading a recipe is to making a more difficult dish. It took me forever to figure out what the texture of the dough is supposed to be before I bake it. Anyway, these delicious puffs consist of two parts: a pate a choux pastry and some kind of filling, usually pastry cream. Both of these components are not the easiest thing to make but it is possible, trust me! 

FILLING

    I started by making my pastry cream because it needed to chill before I could use it to fill my choux. I first put a small pot on my stove and dumped in my milk, heavy cream, and half of my sugar. While that was heating, I whisked the rest of my sugar, cornstarch, salt, and egg yolks in a separate bowl. Once my milk mixture was simmering I slowly poured it into my sugar mixture and whisked it until it was well combined. As soon as I was satisfied with the smoothness of my mixture I poured it all back into my small pot and started to heat it back up. 

    While my cream was warming back up I made the mistake of stepping away for a second. This stuff thickens up super fast so make sure you are constantly stirring it and take it off of the heat as soon as it is thick. If you don't, it will have little chunks and eventually burn. Luckily I caught it before it burnt this time. Honestly, I have never successfully made this without it chunking up a little bit but that is okay because you don't really notice it once you pipe it into your choux pastry. 

    Once my pastry cream was thick I added a little orange zest and orange juice but you can add anything from jam to extract to nothing at all! Once your flavor is well incorporated into your pastry cream, put it in a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Make sure your plastic wrap is touching the surface of your cream, if it is not, your cream will develop a film that has a weird texture that is hard to reincorporate once it is set. 

    Some other fillings I like for my cream puffs are whipped cream or chocolate cremeux. This is an amazing creamy and rich and almost like a mousse with a little bit more jiggle. Honestly, it is my new favorite filling! I started off by simmering 1 cup milk and 1 cup heavy cream in a small pot while whisking together 4 egg yolks, a splash of vanilla, a pinch of salt, and 1/3 cup granulated sugar in a separate bowl. Once my egg yolk mixture is well combined and a little fluffy I keep whisking and slowly pour in my warm milk mixture. I then return my mixture to my small pot and slowly heat it up to about 180-185 degrees F. You want to keep it at this temperature to allow it to thicken up a little bit but you have to be so careful not to burn it. 

    This part is where my recipe is a little weird. Most people use baking chocolate for this recipe but who ever has that on hand? However, I always have chocolate chips in my pantry so I use semisweet chocolate chips instead. If you do have baking chocolate and you want to use that instead  just increase the amount of sugar you use a little bit. I measure out 200g of chocolate chips (about a generous 1 cup) and pour them into a bowl. I then take my heated mixture and pour it over may chocolate chips. I put a lid on my bowl for a minute or two so that the chocolate chips would melt a bit before I mixed it all together. 

    After that 1-2 minutes I pulled out my immersion blender and blended it until everything was very well combined. I covered my filling in plastic wrap and I made sure it touched the surface. This should set for about 2+ hours before you pipe it but if you are using it as a cake filling it should set overnight. When I used it, it got to sit overnight so it was totally set but it piped just fine!

PATE A CHOUX

    When all of my fillings were done I finally got started on my pate a choux pastry. Like I mentioned before, this took five tries before I got it right! Three of those five were utter failures and one them worked fine but it wasn't the way a good pate a choux should be and the fifth was finally right. To say the least, I worked hard on this recipe. 

    I started my choux pastry by preheating my oven to 400 degrees F and boiling my water, milk, butter, and sugar. Once it has come to a rolling boil I turned off the heat and immediately started mixing in in my flour using a wooden spoon. Once it was clumping up into one big dough ball I dumped it into my stand mixer with a mixing paddle attached. You can also use your hand mixer but your arm might get a little tired. I turned my mixer on a low setting and let it beat my dough until it stopped giving off steam. This took about two minutes.

     Once it was less steamy but still warm I scraped it off of the edges of the bowl and in a separate bowl beat four eggs. I poured a little bit of my beaten eggs and poured it into my mixer and mixed it on med-low until the eggs were thoroughly combined. I slowly added more and more of my beaten eggs until my dough forms a V on the bottom of my spatula when I dip it into my dough and it has a bit of a glossy look.  I had a few teaspoons of egg leftover but the amount of egg you use heavily depends on how big your eggs are and how exact your flour measurements are so you could need another egg or you could have a lot leftover. 

    One of the main mistakes I found out I was making was that I didn't provide enough steam in my oven while my dough baked. So, I  covered my baking sheet in parchment paper and brushed water all over before I piped my dough. I made my mounds about two inches wide and one inch tall. You can really decide how big or small you make your pate a choux but you will have to adjust your time if you make them too much bigger or smaller. I dipped my finger in water to smooth down all of the little peaks so that they would not burn or discolor and then I used the leftover beaten egg from my dough to brush the top of each mound. 

    I baked my choux pastry for 20 minutes at 400 degrees F then I reduced the temperature of the oven to 350 degrees F and baked it for 10-15 more minutes or until it was a light brown color. While the oven is going make sure you DO NOT open your oven. If you do, all of the moisture will escape and your puffs won't puff! 

    Once the pate a choux was done baking I turned off my oven and let them cool inside of it with the door cracked. After 5-10 minuets I took them out of the oven and let them cool on a baking rack. Once my Choux was entirely cool I started filling them. 

    You can do this two ways. The first, and the way I prefer, is to use an angled piping tip or a straw to poke a hole in your choux and fill it up. The other way you can fill your cream puffs is to carefully cut them in half and make a puff "sandwich". You can also replace your cream with ice cream and freeze them to turn your cream puffs into profiteroles. 

    Once I figured out my recipe these made professional looking cream puffs! I absolutely love these so much and now that I know what I'm doing this recipe doesn't really take that long and there are endless filling flavors so I will be making these all the time!

    How did this recipe work for you? Leave a comment with your favorite filling!