The French Connection: Cream Puffs

 

Choux à la crème (Cream Puffs)

Recipe

3 large eggs

1 cup of flour

a pinch of salt

½ cup plus 1 Tablespoon milk

½ cup water

1 Tablespoon of sugar

½ cup butter

1 can/container of a favorite whipped cream

Optional:

Fresh berries of your choice

chocolate hazelnut spread or melted chocolate for decoration

Powdered sugar

 

Instructions

1) In a saucepan, warm the water and the milk with the sugar and salt over medium-high heat.

2) Just when the milk mixture starts to boil, add the butter and mix until the butter is melted and fully incorporated into the mixture.

3) Stir in the flour.

4) Continue to stir until everything is well incorporated and the dough becomes easy to form into a ball.

5) Transfer the dough to a medium bowl and let it cool for 10 – 15 minutes.

6) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

7) Add the eggs to the dough and mix in until smooth.

8) Then pipe out little mounds of dough about 1 – 1 ½ inch round.

9) Smooth tops down with damp hands.

10) Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

11) Turn down the oven to 360 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes.

12) And finally lower the temperature again to 300 degrees and bake for 10 minutes.

13) Let it cool for about 10 – 15 minutes.

14) Cut the tops off, about ¾ of the way up from the bottom.

15) Fill with whipped cream and gently place the tops back on.

16) (Optional) Drizzle chocolate over the tops and/or sprinkle with powdered sugar. Also tastes delicious served with your preferred fresh berries.

 

During my first semester at Citrus, I was tormented with the idea of what to present for the first oral presentation in my French 1 class. How can I engage the audience and not bore them with my broken French? Baking! Baking has always been a hobby of mine and eating baked goods is my sport.

So I scoured the Internet searching for a recipe that was not only very French, but also didn’t require a technical degree in physics, with ingredients that every student can get at a supermarket. I aggregated only the most crucial steps to create this easy recipe for choux à la crème.

Commençons, let’s start. Heat up the milk and water in saucepot using a medium-high heat. Add the sugar and salt. Stir occasionally to ensure milk mixture doesn’t scald on the sides. When the milk starts to boil along the sides, lower the heat to medium, add the butter and stir until the butter melts and is incorporated into the mixture.

Once the butter incorporated, add the flour. Keep stirring until the dough starts to pull away from the side of the pot. Turn the heat off and continue to stir until the dough can easily forms a soft ball in the center of the pot.

Let the dough cool for five minutes before transferring it to a medium sized bowl. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl whisk the eggs and set aside. Transfer the dough to the medium bowl and let it cool for another 5 minutes. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and grab a plastic food storage bag that you will use as a piping bag later.

Once the dough has cooled down, add the eggs to the dough and begin mixing. The dough is going to look like a lumpy batter that will not mix. But I assure you, keep mixing and it will combine. Your end result should be the consistency of an extra thick version of cream of wheat. You may need to add a tablespoon or two more to get this consistency as some flours absorb more liquid than others.

With your choux paste ready, transfer that dough into the storage bag for piping and snip off a tip. On your parchment lined baking sheet, pipe out 1 ½ inch round mounds. You should be able to make 25 mounds. Dampen your fingers with cold water and lightly press down any peaks.

Place the completed baking sheet into the oven for ten minutes. The high temperature during this first stage helps the dough to puff up to its fullest potential. Then lower the temperature to 360 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes. This step will cook the insides of the puffs. The last stage of baking consists of lowering the temperature to 300 degrees and baking for ten more minutes. This stage will give your puffs a crispy shell that will hold the structure of the puff. After the ten minutes check your puffs by lightly pressing onto the sides, if they are still soft keep them in for an extra ten minutes. When ready, leave them in the oven with the door slightly ajar, turn off the oven and let them cool down slowly. Cooling them down too quickly will cause your puffs to deflate.

Once the puffs have cooled, cut the tops off, fill them with whipped cream, and place their tops back on. Et voila! Choux à la crème!

I personally I love to eat them in this simplest form but on occasion I’ll serve them with fresh fruit or drizzle some chocolate-hazelnut spread on top. Nothing can compare to these homemade, light as air confections.  Bon Apetit!