Day 106 – Cream puff

A virtual feast for your eyes today! While making my first cream puffs since high school, I learned several things. First, I learned that cream puff pastry dough is actually called, “choux paste”. It can also be used for several other recipes and variations on the cream puff including, profiteroles, eclairs, beignets and even Yorkshire pudding. I used my good ol’ Joy Of Cooking cookbook which introduced me to this versatile dough. Secondly, I learned that what I really have in the above photo is a profiterole. Profiteroles only differ when the cream puff is topped with chocolate sauce and they tend to be slightly smaller than a cream puff. These babies were topped off by Kathy and Sarah’s Secret Chocolate Sauce.
Even the cream filling was interesting to learn about. There are two traditional cream puff fillings; one a whipped cream filling and the other, which I made, a thick vanilla custard. I must admit, the dough was very easy to make (since I’m usually scared of doughs) and overall, the whole cream puff/profiterole experience was fun and simple. It did take a little time while cooling and filling, but I was very pleased. So was the hubby considering there is only one left in the fridge. 🙂
So, that’s probably as much as you will ever want to know about cream puffs.