Cream Puff, or if you're a snob Profiterole :)

I spent many hours at the bakery piping out hundreds and hundreds of cream puffs. I don't know how it became my job. I think, like many other things, I offered once and then from then on I just did it.

Anyway, the recipe for these is incredibly easy. It took me a while to figure this out since I was used to a recipe with 32 eggs and so on that made about 400 puffs. But with some help from the calculator I got it.

Cream Puffs


You will need:

• 2 cups water
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups flour
• 8 eggs
• 1 pint heavy cream 
• 2 tbsp confectioners sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla

Bring the water and 2 sticks butter to a boil. After it's reached a nice bubbly boil turn off the heat and immediately add 2 cups flour.

Stir it up quick and it will form into a nice ball of dough, choux paste, to be fancy.

It's mixed up good once it pulls away from the sides nicely and holds it shape.

Let it stand for a minute or two and then transfer it into the bowl for the stand mixer. Mix at a low speed, adding each egg one at a time, letting the egg become incorporated before you add the next one. I had half large eggs and half extra large eggs so I ended up only using 7 of them.

Have your baking sheets ready. After you've put some of the dough into a piping bag put a little dab in the corners of the sheet. This will keep the parchment paper from curling up. Next put parchment paper on:).

I used a #1A tip I think. But really you could use a freezer bag and cut a hole in the corner about the size in between a penny and a nickle and that would work fine. It helps to do a row across and then a row down and go from there. You get nice straight lines that way. Repeat on second baking sheet. I think I ended up with somewhere between 80 and 90 puffs.

Have your oven pre-heated to 400 degrees and bake them for 40 minutes. Rotate and swap half way through. These could have used like 2 or 3 more minutes but oh well. They're good, I just prefer them a little crustier:).

Mmmmm:)

Fast forward one day. You'll notice the change in scenery. It was approximately 1,000,000 degrees out today so I fill them in the air conditioned oasis that is my parents house. Now, chop their tops off! Set the tops aside and line the bottoms on a tray of your choice.

Like so.

Make some whipped cream using the heavy cream, vanilla, and conf. sugar. At this point you can also add some raspberry jam to half of it or stir some melted white chocolate into half, or mix all of it. Pretty much do whatever you want. I kept these simple with plain whipped cream. You could even make some vanilla pudding and mix it with the whipped cream and make a sort of pastry cream, that would be delicious.

Anyway, using a star tip I piped a little dollop on each bottom.

And then put their tops back on. Don't worry about them getting mixed up, they will. As long as all your puffs are about the same size it won't matter one bit.

Next I melted some dark chocolate pieces and put them in a plastic pastry bag. Put it in a tall glass so you have two hands to pour with if you'd like. Then snip a small hole in the bag, test it out in the bowl and make it bigger if you need to.

And drizzle. (if you're thinking what I'm thinking (liane and tab) you'll be laughing right now)

You don't have to do the chocolate if you don't want. You can do confectioners sugar or caramel or a chocolate glaze. The options are endless.

This picture shows the ones I made for Liane's baby shower. They were raspberry cream filled with chocolate. One day I'd like to make a croquembouche! That would be awesome.

Happy Baking!

*******Edit*******

I feel like I should add that if you're making cream puffs you can just as easily make eclairs. Instead of a little puff just squeeze the pastry bag and continue squeezing as you drag. Stop squeezing and pull up. I know this probably sounds confusing but it's really not. I'm bad at explaining some things...just make a log:), that's simpler haha. Also, if you don't want to cut the tops off use a small round tip in a pastry bag and inject them till they feel firm in your hand. Some might explode, but you just get to eat those! I'm not sure this would work without a metal tip since it has to puncture the puff or eclair. Anyway, just a little extra info.