Cats, Cuisine, and Crafts: The Creme Puff Experiment

So my sisters and I found a recipe for Creme puffs and we just HAD to try. So we made it an experiment for this morning before lunch.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cream-Puffs-395454

So the above is the recipe that we used but we totally didn't follow the end of it, you can though! :)

All right so this recipe calls for...

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter cut into 8 pieces

1 teaspoon and 2 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup flour

6 large eggs

2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

Powdered sugar for dusting

2 pastry bags, 1/2" star-type tip and 1 injector tip

Start by lining 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. (You may need more but start with two). To line the baking sheets spray the baking sheets with butter spray, then lay the parchment over the top. This will allow the sheet to stick to the baking sheet.

Start with a medium saucepan and on medium heat bring the milk, butter, salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar and a 1/2 cup of water to a boil. Mix occasionally until it's boiling.

The last picture above should be what boiling looks like.

When it is boiling, take the full cup of flour and pour it in, then stir it in until it's fully combined. There should be a thin film on the bottom of the pot. When you see this, transfer it to a bowl.

Then, add the eggs in but only add 5. There's a trick though; you need to add them one by one. So you add an egg then mix it fully in before you add the next egg.

Next put the mix into the pastry bag with the star tip. Then create circles of the mix on the parchment.

Your circles should look something like this picture above. You can make them bigger if you like but not any smaller.

When you have that, whisk the remaining egg with two teaspoons of water, then brush on top of the circles.

The racks of the oven should be placed in the upper and middle thirds of the oven, then preheat to 450°. Once the oven is preheated, turn off the oven and place the two trays inside for 10 minutes. Once the ten minutes is up, turn the oven on to 350° and allow the puffs to bake for another 10 minutes. At 10 minutes trade the pans quickly from top to bottom or vica versa. This needs to be done quickly so the puffs don't deflate. This second baking period for our first batch we tried 10 minutes and they deflated, but the second batch we did 15 minutes and they turned out better. I'll give this advice: golden brown is not brown enough, it needs to be more of a dark brown. Not burnt, obviously, but it helps to have them dark brown so they don't deflate.

Can you tell which is better? For us, the baking process took forever so we had to entertain ourselves.

My entertainment was taking pictures of these two. When you pull them out of the oven you need to let them cool on the pans for a few minutes, then pull them off and place them on cooling racks. In order for them to be filled they must be completely cool inside and out. Make your best judgement.

Now for the filling the recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream. My sisters and I were geniuses and only got half a pint. Next time we will get more but it did work out perfectly fine the way we did it. For the filling, pour the heavy cream and 2 tablespoons of sugar into your mixer. Start out slow, then gradually speed up until you have whipped cream. Your pastry bag with your injecting tip should be easily filled with this mixture. Quick thing: if you don't have an injecting tip you are definitely missing out. With even a sandwich bag and this tip you can fill anything; cupcakes, cakes, pastries, pick one thing and try it.

Anyway, once your bag is loaded just carefully put the tip through the first layer of your puff. This should make sure you don't put a hole through the bottom. Then just squeeze a little filling in. Tip: do not put more than two scoops in the bag at a time or you will end up with the kind of mess my sisters and I had when it came out of the back instead of the front.