Cream Puffs
Makes: About 3 dozen
Time: About 1 hour
A delightful bite-sized dessert that’s easy to make and sure to impress. You can vary the dough, filling, and topping endlessly to achieve many different looks and flavors; see How to Customize Choux Pastry for some starters. For a truly showstopping presentation, check out the Croquembouche.
- Butter for greasing (optional)
- 1 recipe Cream Puff Pastry (left)
- 1 recipe Vanilla Pastry Cream
1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Grease 2 baking sheets with butter or line them with parchment paper.
2. Scrape the cream puff pastry dough into a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip or a freezer bag with a corner snipped off or just scoop the batter into mounds using 2 spoons.
3. Pipe or spoon the dough onto the sheets in mounds about 1 inch wide and a little more than 1 inch tall, spacing them 2 inches apart (see illustrations). If the dough has a pointy tip, moisten your finger and gently smooth it down so that it doesn’t burn. To make these in advance, you can freeze the sheets until the puffs are firm, then move them to a zipper bag and keep frozen for no more than a week. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until they’re golden brown, nicely puffed up, and sound hollow when tapped. To make the puffs crisper, you can turn off the oven, prick each puff with a skewer or knife to release steam, and let sit in the oven for another 5 minutes or so. Cool on a rack. These can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days, but wait to fill them until just before serving.
4. To fill the puffs, put the pastry cream in a pastry bag fitted with a large tip or in a zipper bag with a small piece of the corner cut off. Poke a small hole in the side of the puffs, insert the bag, and slowly squeeze in about 1 teaspoon of filling, taking care not to make them burst. Or cut the cap off the pastries, spoon the filling into the middle (you can get away with adding more filling this way), and close them up like sandwiches.
PROFITEROLES Always a hit at dinner parties: Use a saucepan or microwave to gently heat Rich Chocolate Sauce so that it’s warm, not hot. Just before serving, cut the tops off of each pastry and fill with a small scoop of ice cream, then replace the top. Drizzle with the chocolate sauce.
STEP 1
Pipe the cream puff pastry onto the baking sheets.
Alternatively, use 2 spoons to scoop it into mounds.
STEP 2
To fill, use a pastry bag to pipe pastry cream into the baked puffs.
Or, you can cut off the tops of the puffs, spoon the filling into the middle, and close them up like sandwiches.