Homemade cream puffs

on
Today I want to share crispy cream puffs replete with whipped cream and mascarpone filling.

 

Savoury choux pastry lets pleasantly creamy, sweet filling shine, while fruit add some extra freshness to the cream puffs. It's a dessert that is surprisingly easy to make and is guaranteed to impress your loved ones!

You'll find the list of ingredients, method and approximate nutritional value below.

Turn on CC to watch the video.


List of ingredients

Choux pastry

  • 100 g unsalted butter
  • 250 ml water
  • Pinch of salt
  • 160 g (~1 cup) wheat flour
  • 3-4 eggs

Filling

  • 500 ml whipping cream
  • 250 g mascarpone cheese
  • 100 g (1 scant cup) icing sugar
  • 1.5 tsp vanilla paste
  • Fruit (I'm using 100 g mango and 100 g blueberries)

Method

  1. Prepare choux pastry. Put 100 g butter into a thick-bottomed pot. Add 250 ml water and a small pinch of salt. Heat up the contents of the pot over medium heat, stirring, until uniform liquid forms. Once butter melts, stop stirring and bring liquid to a boil.
  2. Turn off the heat and add 160 g wheat flour to the pot. Stir the contents of the pot with a wooden spoon until flour absorbs all moisture. Turn heat on to low and stir pastry constantly for around 60 seconds, until it becomes smooth and comes away from the sides of the pot easily. Once you get the right texture, take the pot off heat and transfer pastry into a large bowl. Leave the bowl on a countertop for around 15 minutes to cool slightly.
  3. Break up the pastry with an electric mixer then and start adding eggs. Add one egg at a time and stir pastry thoroughly until each egg gets fully incorporated before adding the next one. Well made pastry should be shiny and smooth, and it should keep its shape after piping. Start with adding three eggs, assess the texture and, optionally, add another egg or half of a beaten egg as required.
  4. Once pastry is ready, transfer it into a piping bag fitted with a star-shaped tip. I'm using an 8B tip, which is very large, but a smaller tip will work, too. Pipe out pastry onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Create 5-6 cm wide nests this way - they will result in large, wide cream puffs. It is important to keep a good amount of space between the nests or your cream puffs may stick together as they raise during baking.
  5. Put the baking tray into an oven preheated to 200 deg C, no fan, on a second-to-bottom shelf. Bake cream puffs for 30 minutes until beautiful and golden. Don't open your oven as cream puffs are baking or they may deflate.
  6. Take the baking tray out after 30 minutes and set it aside for around 10 minutes to cool slightly. After this time transfer the cream puffs onto a wire rack and cool them completely.
  7. Once cream puff shells are cool, prepare the filling. Pour 500 ml cold whipping cream into a large bowl. Add 250 g cold mascarpone cheese, 100 g icing sugar and 1.5 tsp vanilla paste. If you don't have vanilla paste, you can replace some sugar with vanilla sugar. Beat the contents of the bowl with an electric mixer until stiff. I recommend starting at low mixer speed and gradually increase the speed setting as cream increases in volume.
  8. Transfer whipped cream into a piping bag fitted with the same tip as previously. Slice each cream puff shell in half with a serrated knife. Pipe a generous amount of whipped cream onto a bottom half. Cover the bottom and fill empty spaces. Arrange some fruit on top of cream, cover them with the upper half of pastry and, optionally, dust some icing sugar on top. Serve cream puffs soon after filling to make sure their bottoms don't become soggy.
  9. Enjoy!

Approximate nutritional value

100 g

  • 355 kcal
  • Carbs: 19 g 
  • Fat: 29 g
  • Protein: 5 g
  • Fibre: 1 g

1 cream puff (recipe makes 15 cream puffs)

  • 341 kcal
  • Carbs: 18 g
  • Fat: 28 g
  • Protein: 4 g
  • Fibre: 1 g

Comments

Post a Comment