Cream Puffs!

As I've mentioned before, those of our family who are local converge every Sunday after church at my Aunt Lois' house for brunch. It's been a great way for us all to get reacquainted, since this is the first time we've all lived in the same area. It's also a great opportunity to try new recipes and enjoy each others' creations.

Last week I decided to make cream puffs. I love cream puffs and had always wanted to try making them, but they seemed like something that would be very difficult and complicated to make. I found a recipe for them at my favorite recipe site and they looked much easier than I'd expected. As always, I read through all of the reviews to get a good sense of the ins and outs of the recipe, and made some adjustments to it based on them before I began. You can click on the link to see the original recipe, this is the version I developed and followed based on the reviews.

filling:
2 (3.5 oz.) packets of white chocolate pudding
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk

puffs:
1/2 cup butter (or 1 stick)
1 cup water
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup all purpose flour
4 eggs
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

I made the filling the day before to give it plenty of time to set. I simply mixed the three ingredients. Since we don't drink milk, I keep powdered milk on hand, and I mixed up a cup of it for this. I always worry it will be too thin, but it has yet to fail me. After it set the filling was very thick, as it should be to keep its shape and not soak the puffs. I mixed it by hand, but next time I make this I will use the mixer, as I couldn't get all the lumps out. No one seemed to notice though.

Then I rounded up some helpers.


I always like to gather and set out my ingredients before I get started. It facilitates clean-up as it keeps any mess localized, and makes me feel like a TV chef. I also turned the oven on to 425 to preheat.


I put the water and butter in a pot on the stove to boil, then mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl and broke and scrambled the eggs. I knew I would be adding these things to a hot liquid, and by prepping them in advance I would be minimizing the possibility that they would cook before they could be well incorporated.


Brought the water and butter to a rolling boil.


Removed it from heat, then quickly added the dry ingredients and mixed it until it formed a ball in the center of the pot.


I transferred the dough ball to the mixer, where I mixed it on low for about thirty seconds to allow the steam to escape. I was still worried about the eggs cooking when I add them, so I let the dough sit and cool for about two minutes while I cleaned up a bit. When it was just a little warmer than room temperature I added the eggs, started up the mixer, then added the vanilla and mixed it until it was satiny.


I lined a cookie sheet with parchment and dropped the dough by the tablespoon. The recipe was only supposed to make 20 puffs, so I put 20 on one sheet, but it ended up making 40.



I baked them exactly 20 minutes and immediately poked a hole in each one with my handy dandy little cake tester thingie my parents gave me for Christmas. The holes are supposed to let the steam escape to prevent collapse, but they didn't seem to be in any danger of that.


After they had cooled completely I cut them each in half to fill with the pudding mixture. They were completely hollow inside, perfect!


So I deposited a generous spoonful of filling into each one. If I'd had a pastry bag I might have used that instead, but this worked out just fine.

They were a hit, especially with Max. The white chocolate pudding simply tasted like vanilla, so I don't know why so many people had suggested it. Next time I will just use vanilla.

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