Creme Puffs (from scratch)

    Last week I checked out some of Julia Child's recipe books and a couple of nights ago I made crème puffs from the 'Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home.'

 

I recommend checking this book out at the Library because it cost $40 to buy it. But back to the recipe, the thing I like about it is that everything is made from scratch!

Ingredients for Puff Pastry:
      1 Cup Milk
      4Tbs butter (half a stick)
      A pinch of salt
     1 Cup flour (unsifted)
     5 Large eggs

Special Equipment:
     A 3-quart sauce pan
     A food processer (I used a Ninja blender, since I don't own a food processer, but just a regular blender will work.)
     2 cookie sheets with parchment paper
     A pastry brush (I used a spoon)
     A pastry bag (I used a Ziplock bag and cut the corner off.


  Let's Cook!
   
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Put the milk, butter, salt, and sugar in the sauce pan and set over high heat. Stir as the butter melts and bring the liquid to a boil.
3. Immediately remove pan from heat, dump in the flour all at once, and stir rapidly with a wooden spoon, until all the four is moistened and a paste comes together.
4. Set the pan over medium heat and continue to stir vigorously. The dough will leave the sides of the pan and gather into a soft lump. Continue stirring the dough in the pan to dry it slightly, for a minute or so, until a whitish, cakey skin form on the bottom of the sauce pan.
5.Remove from heat and scrape the lump of dough into the bowl of the food processor. Allow it to cool for about five minutes, so the eggs don't cook when added.

6. Meanwhile, break four of the eggs into a measuring cup or bowl and crack the fifth egg into a separate small bowl. Do not beat the eggs.
7. Pulse the dough in the food processer a few times to break up the lump.
8. Then, with the machine running tip the bowl of eggs over the feed tube, allowing only one egg to slide into the work bowl.

    

 

9. Let the mixer beat the egg for about five seconds and continue to do this with the three remaining eggs.

10. When the dough has a paste consistency, spoon it into a pastry bag, or a Ziplock bag. (If using a Ziplock bag then cut a tiny portion off of the corner.)

 

  

 

 

 

11. Squeeze the dough out onto your parchment paper lined cookie sheets into little mounds.

 



 



12. Beat the egg you saved earlier and pour some of the egg white out so that there is equal parts of yolk and white. Now use your pastry brush (or spoon) and coat each mound with the egg wash.
13. Place the cookie sheets in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown. When the puffs appear done, prop the oven open about two inches for 30 minutes or so before removing. Cool them completely before using.

While they are cooling, time to make the whipped crème. Or to make it easier just go buy the can of whipped crème at the store. I prefer to make it because it is a lot cheaper and you get a lot more!

Ingridients for whipped crème:
           1 1/2 cups of Heavy whipping crème
            1/2 cup of sugar
              1Tsp of vanilla
Directions:
      Pour the heavy whipping crème and the vanilla in a bowl. Beat with a cake mixer until a whipped crème consistency. Next fold in the sugar. And there you have it!

Now poke a little hole in the puffs with a knife, and put the whipped crème in a ziplock bag, doing the same thing you did previously with it. and squeeze or fill up each puff with the crème.

    Now you can it time for the chocolate sauce! This is optional and you can find any recipe for this off the internet but for a link to the one I used CLICK HERE

And Volia!!! You have a Crème puffs! These didn't last very long at my house, they were gone by the next day!

Any questions just leave a comment! And here is a random picture of a Flower I took!