I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a very delicate person. I may or may not have made a huge mess of some of these while trying to fill them with cream, but hey, messes are part of cooking. I think all of these came out looking pretty good—it was filling them that made the mess. I had some, um, overflows with the piping bag . . . cream came out of the wrong end of the bag or overflowed out of the pastries.
Cream puffs (a.k.a. profiteroles) are a great dessert that can be made in a million different ways. The recipe I have for you below is not exactly the one I started off with, but it's still delicious!
The shells are a standard pâte á choux dough. You can find the recipe below or from a million different sources and they're all pretty much the same. You can make them with or without sugar (depends how sweet you want it) but it's really not necessary—this is coming from someone with a huge sweet tooth.
The filling can be one of a hundred different things. This was my first attempt at making cream puffs, so I was going to go with a simple vanilla cream . . . which I messed up the first time and couldn't try again because I was out of eggs. So, take 2! This was my first attempt at making cream puffs, so I went with a simple filling: whipped cream! Whipped cream is easy to make and easy to pipe, so it's ideal for filling cream puffs with.
Finally, these are topped with chocolate ganache, which really makes them delectable. I almost topped them with rainbow sprinkles, but decided to stop myself (I'm still not sure why). Next time!
Cream Puffs with Whipped Cream Filling and Chocolate Ganache Topping
Makes: 24-32 cream puffs
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 10 to 15 minutes
1 cup water
½ cup unsalted butter
1 cup all purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
4 large eggs
Whipped cream for filling
8 oz bittersweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1. Preheat oven to 425℉.
2. In a small saucepan, bring the water and butter to a rolling boil. While that heats up, whisk together the flour and salt.
3. Sift the flour into the boiling mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball, then place in cool mixing bowl.
4. Mix eggs into the dough with a stand mixer or wooden spoon until smooth and uniform. I used a whisk here, but just be warned, the dough will get stuck in the middle of the whisk.
5. Transfer dough to a piping bag and pipe about 24 spirally mounds (like topping pie with whipped cream) onto an ungreased baking sheet. They should be about 2 inches in diameter. Push down any points at the centers of the mounds, then bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.
6. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool before filling. Meanwhile, you can make your whipped cream.
7. Make the chocolate ganache by stirring together the heavy cream and vanilla extract, then heating in a saucepan until steaming. Pour the steaming mixture over the bittersweet chocolate and stir until smooth.
8. Pipe whipped cream into the cream puff shells through the bottom using a long, narrow piping nozzle. Dip the tops into the ganache, and refrigerate to firm up the ganache.