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easy desserts & recipes: crunchy cookie topped cream puffs & profiterole’s & choux cream puffs

MyFudo — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:51:32 +0000

Cream puffs, profiterole, or as it is known in Japan, “choux cream puffs”, are a gift from the gods! There are so many types of pastries but no other can be as delectable as choux cream puffs.

We oftentimes fail to think about just how such a delicious creation has come to pass because we are always enthralled with the burst of scrumptiousness whenever we bite into any pastry, most especially a choux puff. Pastries have been made to intoxicate the senses and it especially affects one’s senses of smell, sight, and taste. The choux cream is no exception. Its origin and the name “profiterole” is ambiguous, but many sources have traced it to North Eastern Italy, and this term has graced man’s lips in English and was borrowed from the French as early as the 16th century. At the time, it was a kind of roll that was baked under the ashes.

The cream puff as it is known in America has been a staple in restaurants since 1851, maybe even earlier. Choux (pronounced as “shoe”) literally means “cabbage” in French. The choux cream resembles a head of baby cabbage and most likely is named after the vegetable.

The art of creating delicious pastries is a gift in itself but it also takes a far greater talent to tweak masterful recipes into something much more. Over the years there have been several variations to the choux cream and some of them really stand out! One in particular is the cookie topped choux puff. For anyone who loves custards and cream, this is a match made in heaven. The choux cream’s light and fluffy texture, rich creamy custard filling, combined with the cookie topping is a delicious combustion just waiting to happen in your mouth!

For the regular version without the crunchy cookie top, check it out here.

When testing this recipe, we used a combination of both recipes and directions below.

Crunchy Cookie Top Cream Puffs

Recipe adapted from Cookpad.

Cookie Dough

Butter 30g
Sugar 30g
Cake Flour 30g
Diced or Sliced Almonds 30g

Note: You can use almost any eggless sugar cookie recipe.

Cream Puff Pastry

Also Adapted from The Joy of Baking

1/2 cup (65 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon granulated white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) (57 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup (120 ml) water
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly butter or spray the pan with a non stick vegetable spray.
In a bowl sift or whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.
Place the butter and water in a heavy saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. (Make sure that the butter melts before the water boils to reduce the amount of evaporation.)
Remove from heat and, with a wooden spoon, add the flour mixture, all at once, and stir until combined.
Return saucepan to the heat and stir constantly until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a thick smooth ball (about 1-2 minutes).
Transfer the dough to your electric mixer, or use a hand mixer, and beat on low speed to release the steam from the dough (about a minute).
Once the dough is lukewarm start adding the lightly beaten eggs (dough will separate and then come together) and continue to mix until you have a smooth thick paste (dough will fall from a spoon in a thick ribbon).
Spoon or pipe 12 small mounds of dough onto the baking sheet, spacing about 2 inches (5 cm) apart. With a pastry brush, gently brush the tops of the dough with a lightly beaten egg.
(for cookie crunch top place the cookie dough, crumbled as cut with a cookie tin, square or circle is fine, place evenly on top of choux pastry dough). Here is the link to the pictures of how you can apply the cookie dough before baking.
Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
Continue to bake for a further 30 to 35 minutes or until the shells are a nice amber color and when split, are almost dry inside.
Turn the oven off, poke a couple of holes in each puff and, with the oven door slightly ajar, let the shells completely cool (and dry out).

Japanese Cookpad Recipe

(follow same directions for the Choux Pastry above from Joy of Baking)

Water 100g
Cake Flour 60g
Butter 50g
2 Eggs whipped

Cheese Custard Filling

Milk 200g
1 Vanilla Beans (remove vanilla bean paste from beans)
2 Egg Yolks
Cake Flour 10g
Cornstarch 5g
Granulated Sugar 100g
Cream Cheese 100g
Cointreau 10g

Directions

Place Cookie Dough Divided Evenly onto of the uncooked Choux Pastry.
Preheat Oven to 200c For cook for 20 Minutes
Turn down the oven to 180c and bake for 40 minutes or until lightly golden brown.

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easy desserts & recipes: choux à la crème (meet marie)

MyFudo — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:00:45 +0000

The two creators of myFudo, one of the most fun and informative food community sites in the Internet, are great friends who have not yet seen each other in “real” life. If asked what they would do if they did get to meet, these would be their answers:

If someone had told me years ago that I would find true friendship in the Internet, I wouldn’t have believed them. I would have shrugged of the very idea that I would find any remote semblance of a friend in any person I meet on the computer. But life is unpredictable, and gave me an unexpected gift in the form of Camille. Although we have never met in real life, I hold her dear to my heart and consider her a friend in every sense of the word. Would you believe that we have been friends for three years now? Wow!

Managing myFudo together has brought us even closer as we share our love for food, among other things. If we were to meet someday, I will offer her my favorite dishes, and it will be a feast full of fun and laughter as if we had always known each other since childhood. For dessert, I will serve her choux cream, those delicious puff pastries that are also known as “cream puff” to Americans, “choux à la crème” to the French, “profiterole”, and “prophiteról” to the Greeks. They are the quintessential embodiment of just how versatile this dessert is no matter what part of the world it comes from. It still keeps the essence of what it is known to me, just like my friendship with Camille, wherever ends of the earth we find ourselves to be in, there’s this certain something that draws us together.

Now, these delectable pastries are filled with either pastry cream, whipped cream, or ice cream, and are topped with a caramel glaze or chocolate sauce and dusted with powdered sugar. Profiteroles are smaller versions of the pastry. Which yet again proves another point: what you see is not always what you get and it’s always the inside that counts. Our friendship developed from the inside, because there were no superficial outsides to judge, which made our understanding of each other all the more pure.

Being a Francophile (French American) I am proud to acknowledge that choux cream has French roots and each choux à la crème is assembled into a pièce montée to resemble a mountain and is often the centerpiece in a wedding or Christmas. Choux cream are elegant and delectable pastries, and I place much care and time into their creation. They would be fitting gustatory treats for my friend, Camille, as we share our stories and our secrets without embarrassment or restraint, nary a care in the world nor having to worry about the decorum of how to conduct oneself because there simply are no reservations between friends!

This post will be a guest post on December 27th 2011 on “Life Tastes Like Food“.

easy desserts & recipes: choux à la crème (meet marie)

MyFudo — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:00:45 +0000

This post will be a guest post on December 27th 2011 on “Life Tastes Like Food“.