#perfiteroles

[omgsamchap]

Cream puffs with bourbon vanilla filling

[crispaf]

Cream Puffs!

These cream-filled desserts are made from pâte à choux, a light and airy French pastry dough. “Choux” means cabbage - probably because the dough looks a little crinkly and cabbage-like when it’s cooked:

The pâte à choux is simple to make and requires the following ingredients:

-½ cup water

-½ cup whole milk

-½ tsp salt

-1 tsp sugar

-8 Tbsp/113g unsalted butter

-1 cup/142 bread flour (i.e. high protein flour)

-230g/approx 4 eggs

I found this recipe here - she makes eclairs, but the dough is the same.

Bring the water, milk, salt, sugar, and butter to a boil. Stir in the bread flour and continue cooking for 1-2 min to dry the dough out slightly. Transfer the dough to a bowl and add eggs one at a time using a handheld mixer. Use a piping bag to transfer the choux dough to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicon mat. Cook at 350F with convection (or 375 without) for 30 minutes.

The cream filling is a vanilla crème pâtissière mixed with some whipped cream. For the crème pâtissière you’ll need:

-1 cup milk

-1 vanilla bean, scraped

-1 Tbsp whiskey

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-3 egg yolks

-¼ cup sugar

-3 Tbsp corn starch

-2 Tbsp butter

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, whiskey, and vanilla extract together in a bowl. Add the milk and vanilla bean seeds to a saucepan and heat over medium until it starts to steam. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture while whisking - if you do this too quickly, you’ll cook the eggs, which will make your custard lumpy and gross. Then return everything to the saucepan and whisk over medium heat until it thickens. Once thickened, strain the mixture into a bowl with 2 Tbsp of butter in it and mix until the butter is melted. Refrigerate for one hour. 

I prefer to lighten up the cream filling by adding some heavy cream. In a small bowl or a stand mixer, whisk 1-2 cups of heavy cream until thickened. Add some powdered sugar. Once whipped to medium/stiff peaks, fold in the crème pâtissière. There you have your filling!

For the chocolate glaze, you’ll need:

-125g dark chocolate chips

-½ cup heavy cream

-1 Tbsp light corn syrup

Microwave ingredients for 1 minute then stir vigorously until smooth. Dip filled cream puffs in the chocolate mixture and let dry for 30 min!