Cream Puffs

I always thought cream puffs and eclairs are so hard.  I was probably scared of using the piping bag.  Now I'm obsessed with using it now.  I have been practicing my cake decorating.  BTW you can't over whip butter cream.  I keep the process is similar to bread making which I am very aware how long to mix the ingredients to prevent a hard bread.  Anyway, I'm sorry I switch topics.  I do that in person too.  So I made this also for my book club.  My husband requested this actually.  Here is the recipe I got from the Food Addicts blog. 

 

 

Cream Puffs with Nutella Pastry Cream

(adapted from the Food Addicts)

Ingredients

(Pastry Dough - Pâte à Chou)

• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 5 large eggs

Ingredients

(Nutella Pastry Cream)

• 16 oz. milk
• 1/4 of vanilla bean, cut and scraped out
• 3 1/2 oz. sugar, granulated
• 4 egg yolks
• 3 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp butter, unsalted
• 1 tbsp Nutella

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375-degrees.

2. In a saucepan, bring water to a boil with butter and salt over high heat.

3. Reduce heat to moderate and add flour and mix well until mixture pulls away from sides, forming a dough.

4. Transfer dough to a mixer and beat in the eggs, 1 at a time on high speed. Batter should be a stiff, but soft, consistency. (Easy to pipe)

5. Pipe the mixture onto a greased cookie sheet (or silicone mat), about 1.5 inch wide for each cream puff.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and let cool.  *I forgot to time it.

7. For pastry cream, place milk in saucepan and pour in sugar.

8. Add vanilla and bring mixture to a scald. *I used liquid vanilla because I didn't have the vanilla bean

9. Whisk egg yolks and cornstarch and temper in the hot milk.  *BTW I got a bit messy from this.

10. Add back to scalded milk mixture.

11. Heat over medium heat until cornstarch taste is gone and begins to boil.

12. Strain over butter and pour into shell or chill in ice bath at 40F. (This will help the cream get thick.) *I add nutella after I turned of the heat because I wasn't sure when to add it.

13. Transfer the cream to a piping bag and pipe into each puffed pastry from the middle center, at one of the nooks.  *I went from the bottom because I didn't realized that I left a hole

 

This is lemon filled                 This is Nutella filled

 

I got it pretty close but The Husband said the cream tasted like cheese.  I have no idea how that happened and I'm not asking.  Than again, his response when I ask him how my pan de sal recipe tasted, he said it tasted like bread.