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Cream Puffs (from Yochanna's)
Choux Paste:
85 gm. water
50 gm. Butter
60 gm. Plain flour
125 gm. eggs (about 2 eggs)
Custard filling:
420 gm. fresh milk
150 gm. sugar
5 eggs - beaten lightly
30 gm. Butter
25 gm. flour
25 gm. cornflour
1/2 tsp. Vanilla esssence
1 tsp. Rum
Method for choux paste:
(1) Boil water and butter till boiling.
(2) Pour in all the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon till paste is not sticky and leaving the side of the pan. Remove from heat and let it cool till lukewarm.
(3) Stir in eggs and mix till it becomes a smooth paste.
(4) Fill paste into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto a baking tray. Makes about 15 nos.
(5) Bake at 180C for about 20 mins. or till puffed up and golden in colour.
(6) For filling: Boil milk with sugar till sugar dissolves.
(7) Meantime, mix cornflour and flour together and then mix in the 5 beaten eggs. Seive mixture.
(8) Remove hot milk from stove, pour gradually into the egg mixture and stir till well mixed. Return to stove again and cook over low heat till custard thickens.
(9) Stir in butter, vanilla essence and rum and set aside to cool.
(10) Cut cream puffs but not cut through, pipe some custard filling into the puff and close back the top part.
(11) Serve.
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We encountered a few problems along the way. First it was with the eggs. A's house's eggs were doubleyolk-prone so had a difficult time trying to measure exactly 125g of eggs. We gave up trying to get the 125g (we already had 4 egg yolks), so we left it at 109g. As for the custard filling's eggs, we left them at 273g (supposed to be 312.5g) due to the double yolks again.
Anyway, for step (2), don't doubt your perhaps dubious looking butter and water mixture, and just stir really vigorously. It really does turns into sticky paste then into not-as-sticky paste :). I haven't had prior experience in making puffs before, so I was thinking how on earth am I supposed to pipe a watery mixture onto a baking tray?! But the paste turned out well with the endless stirring.
I am a total newbie when it comes to piping things using piping bags and nozzles and after a few false starts, managed to pipe the paste onto the tray. Put parchment paper on the tray to ease the removing of the baked puffs later on.
Sent them into the oven!
The puffs puffing up, on their way to becoming fat and golden.
While I was busy trying to make the paste go through the piping bag and nozzle to form decent looking shapes on the tray, A progressed to custard making.
Step (7), mixing the corn flour, plain flour and eggs. We sieved the two flours first before adding the eggs, instead of sieving after adding in eggs cos we thought that the sticky eggs may pose a problem during sieving.
Custard filling (it looks like egg mayonnaise!). We tasted the custard and it tasted quite ordinary. And it didn't turn out smooth as I had expected it to be.
Spooned the custard into the puffs.
Second batch of puffs. Was more experienced so the puffs look more puffed up than the first batch.
The custard filling was more than enough for the estimated number of puffs (15) in the recipe. Made the second batch of puffs, altogether we had about 12-14 puffs, and the amount of custard left could fill up to at least 6 more puffs. It could be due to our puffs being flatter, so we couldn't spoon too much custard into them.
Overall, the custard filling can be improved upon. I'll either attempt it again, this time either adding more milk or butter, to improve the texture or search for another recipe to compare. The choux paste (puffs) turned out quite well, except they could be more crispy. But our encouraging family members said the puffs tasted quite good. It's a rule of thumb to recognise and appreciate others' cooking/baking efforts so that the next time round, they will continue to cook/bake for you=P.
Next time I can stuff the puffs with durian or even ice cream (my mum's suggestion). Hehheh.
Note: After a few days of refrigerating, the custard looked a lot smoother than it had been :).
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