Cream Puff

Cream Puff has always been my favourite since the time when Ditos (my dear friend from Miriam College)has baked this for us. He would always give a box of this yummy pastry every Christmas to all his friends. It's mouthwatering, believe me. The crispiness of the caramelised sugar outside and the creamy filling would really make us crave more and more. He only stopped baking this one when his oven got stuffed up because of the floods in Malabon.

Here is a recipe and a variety of fillings to satisfy your palate.

Cream Puff

Ingredients:
1 C water
1/2 C butter
1 C all purpose flour or plain flour
4 eggs (I added the eggs as the recipe I have found had no eggs in it)

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 400 F or 200 C if you're using fan forced oven like I do. Heat water and butter to a rolling boil in a saucepan. You can use the medium sized saucepan. Add flour all at once and stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball (about 1 minute). remove from heat. beat in eggs thoroughly one at a time. drop from a spoon onto ungreased baking sheet into mounds with about 3 inches apart. Bake at 45 to 50 minutes (Don't be scared that you might burn it because based from my experience, it would really take that long if the size of the puff is a spoonfull.) until puffed, gorlden brown and dry. When they're a bit cool, split cream puffs. I would also sometimes use my piping bag to put the filling and I use the round nozzle. Put the filling inin and dribble with caramelised sugar.


Fillings:

Cream
1/2 C sugar
1/3 C all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 C fresh milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Procedure:
Mix sugar, four and salt in a saucepan. Blend in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring until it boils. Boil for 10 minutes and then remove from fire. Stir half of cream mixture into beaten eggs. Pour back in saucepan and blend. Bring just to a boil. Lower heat and stir for 10 minutes or until it could coat a spoon. Cool, add vanilla and fill puffs.

Note:
Use a wooden spoon in stirring. You can add vanilla early in the procedure in you want. I do that to make sure that the vanilla is well mixed with the cream mixture. I also suggest that you put the cream filling in the fridge for at least 10 minutes before you fill the puffs.


Custard
Ingredients:
1 C milk
4 egg yolks
1 C thickened cream
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp cornflour
1/3 C confectioners sugar

Procedure:
In a saucepan, mix milk, cream, and vanilla. Stir until hot enough but not boiling. Remove from fire and set aside.
Beat egg yolks, cornflour and sugar in a bowl until mixed evenly. Pour hot milk mixture to the egg mixture while whisking continuously.
Place the mixture back into the saucepan and cook in avery low heat for 15 minutes or until custard form. Set aside and let it cool.

Note:
One thing difficult about making custard is that you need to make sure that you have the right amount of heat to cook it and that you have to whisk it non-stop until you reach your desired consistency. There is always the danger of curdling the mixture so it is very very important to follow the procedure by heart.


Lemon Cream
Ingredients:
1 egg
1/3 C sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp butter, cubed
1 C heavy cream
2 tsp confectioners sugar

Procedure:
In a saucepan, combine egg, sugar, lemon juice and butter. Boil for 5 -7 minutes.
Remove from heat. cool quickly by placing pan in a bowl of ice water for 2 minutes. Refrigerate until partially set.
Beat in sugar and cream. Fold in lemon mixture.

Note:
I suggest that you use the freshly squeezed juice of a lemon instead of buying the one in the bottle. I really don't like the medicine - like taste of the ones that we buy in bottles.


Chocolate

Ingredients:
1 C heavy whipping cream
1/2 C confectioners sugar
2 tbsp cocoa

Procedures:
Beat cream until soft peaks form. Add sugar, cocoa until almost stiff.

Note:
I use the cadburry cocoa. This is the easiest and the simplest filling. No need for cooking.


Glaze

Caramelised Sugar
1 C sugar
1/2 C hot water

Melt sugar in a heavy metal container. As soon as the sugar is golden brown, add the hot water to disolve caramelised sugar and form syrup.

Note:
Do this carefully because you don't really want to get burn with the sugar. Make sure that the water is really hot because if it it a bit cool, the sugar will become solid.

Chocolate
1/2 C choc chips
2 tbsp condensed milk

Procedure
Melt the chocolates in a double layer saucepan. Make sure that the bottom is not touching the water. Add milk.