Strawberry Cream Puffs

January 8, 2018 By in Breakfast & Brunch, Desserts, Eggs, French, Milk & Cream, Oven Baked, Stovetop, Strawberries Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Light and airy pate choux cream puffs filled with a delicious fresh strawberry bavarian cream.
Strawberry Cream Puffs
Strawberry Cream Puffs

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

Ok, guys. This month for #BakingBloggers I am really stoked that everyone voted on Choux Pastry for the topic. It seems so daunting, doesn’t it? But it isn’t!

But that recipe looks long. I know! I know! So alrighty, I did it  in a two parter, because I made the strawberry cream from scratch (and it’s not very hard, trust me, just a simple cooked custard). Then we move on to the cream puffs themselves, which aren’t hard either, but it does have some important things to know. Please make sure you don’t fan the oven door and make sure when you mix the batter that the egg is VERY WELL mixed in. Because what will happen if you don’t is that during baking, you might notice the puffs not rising, and a puddle of butter appears around the puffs, and it goes downhill  from there. Scientific bits about it are that if the egg isn’t incorporated, it won’t rise.  And if it  hangs about on one side of the batter, leaving the flour and butter to fend for themselves, the flour just isn’t interesting enough to the butter so it shouts “Bye Felicia!” and oozes out onto the pan, leaving deflated little lumps of…crap.

Believe me, I know this because I did it, then threw those away.

Little known fact: I bruised my clavicle this weekend, so the old arm just isn’t exactly Rosie the Riveter, and the batter may have looked good to me but it could have been stirred more. So second time around I went for the mixer, because hey. When you have one you can do that. And you could also use a handheld with snap in beaters (but I got ride  of that a long time ago). (Don’t ask me, I just did.)

As for the strawberry cream, you can figure out on your own how to make whipped cream, right? Just add a little sugar to make it firm. Or you can use something like Cool Whip or the stuff in the can I guess. Your whipped cream. You decide. I just add it to lighten up the strawberry cream since it is pudding-like. And most people are used to just fluffy whipped cream only.

Strawberry Cream Puffs

I do offer a lightened up version of this for health-conscious January dieters. That would be the plain strawberry on the side. You go ahead and diet on that while the rest of us have the cream puffs. I mean at least it was, at some point,  sitting very near to the cream-puff, so that makes it very nearly a cream puff? No? You don’t think so? I don’t either.

Just eat it and have a salad for dinner. Right?

Yep. C’ya again soon. I have a pretzel recipe going up tomorrow if I don’t forget I have a post to publish, like I did on Saturday with my Instant Pot bean soup. I’ll get to it. Don’t worry.

Strawberry Cream Puffs

Strawberry Cream Puffs

  • Servings: 10
  • Difficulty: moderate
  • Print

Strawberry Cream Puffs
Strawberry Cream Ingredients:

  • 1 cup chopped hulled strawberries
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 cup strawberry preserves
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 cups prepared stabilized whipped cream
  • powdered sugar

Cream Puff ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup cold cubed butter
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1  cup all-purpose flour
  • 4 large eggs

Filling Method:

  1. Prepare the filling by pureeing the strawberries with milk in a food processor.
  2. Stir puree with heavy cream and cornstarch in a saucepan.
  3. Bring mixture to a boil, then boil one minute and remove from heat.
  4. Whisk eggs in a small bowl, then add custard to egg yolks about 1/4 cup at a time, whisking briskly, until mixture warms, then add the egg mixture back to the pan and cook over low heat one minute more, stirring constantly.
  5. Remove from heat and stir in the preserves and vanilla.
  6. Place in a container with plastic wrap pressed down against the top to prevent skin from forming.
  7. Refrigerate until chilled (I chilled mine overnight).

Cream Puff Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
  2. To prepare cream puffs, heat the water, salt and butter in a saucepan until it comes to a boil.
  3. Add flour all at once and stir quickly until mixture forms a solid ball.
  4. Remove from heat and place the dough into an electric mixer  fitted with a paddle, not bothering to scrape any batter from the sides.
  5. Run the mixer and add the eggs one at a time, making sure each one blends in totally.
  6. Mixture should be glossy with no  raw egg showing when it is done.
  7. Use a 1/4-cup  ice cream scoop to drop batter onto a silpat lined baking sheet.
  8. Bake cream puffs for 10 minutes, then drop the heat to 350°F., and DO NOT open the door in that time.
  9. Bake 30 minutes more.
  10. When they are done they should be browned and dry.
  11. Take a sharp paring knife and cut a little slit in the puff for steam to escape and place pan back in the oven with it turned off, baking for an additional  five minutes with residual heat, letting the steam escape.
  12. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack in a draft-free location for thirty minutes.
  13. Fold stabilized whipped cream (heavy cream whipped with a small amount of powdered sugar to keep it firm longer) into strawberry cream.
  14. When cool, cut tops off puffs with a bread knife and fill with strawberry cream, then dust with powdered sugar.
  15. Keep refrigerated.

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com


Strawberry Cream Puffs

#BakingBloggers

Choux Pastry

 

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