Cream Puffs (Choux à la Crème)

I was going to start off this post by telling you guys that the only thing worse than someone showing up to a party wearing the same dress as you, is someone showing up with the same dessert. The reason I was going to say that is because the night before the party I was invited to this weekend, I discovered that someone else was making cream puffs. But then I showed up to the party yesterday and I found out that that person didn't actually end up bringing them because they didn't turn out so great for her. So basically, all I have for you guys now is I made cream puffs for a party this weekend...and they were pretty awesome, if I may say so myself.

Cream Puffs (Choux à la Crème)

Yield: 4 dozen mini cream puffs

Ingredients:

For the pastry dough: (pàte à choux)

1 cup water

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 large eggs

For the pastry cream:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups whole milk

4 egg yolks

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

pinch of vanilla powder (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Directions:

For the pastry dough: (pàte à choux)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt.

Bring the water to a boil in a medium-size saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the butter. When the butter has melted, add the flour mixture all at once and stir vigorously. Cook and stir until the mixture forms a ball that doesn’t separate.

Remove from the heat and cool slightly (about 1 minute). Transfer the dough ball to the bowl of a KitchenAid stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or to a large mixing bowl if you are using a hand mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each one until the dough is smooth. (You can also use a wooden spoon to beat the eggs in yourself).

Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a medium-sized star tip and pipe circles about 2-inches in diameter and about 1-inch apart onto greased baking sheets (or baking sheets lined with parchment paper). Bake the puffs for about 17-20 minutes. Remove the cream puffs from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.

-If you don't have a pastry bag, you can cut the corner of a Ziploc bag and use that, or you can simply drop heaping tablespoons of dough. The bigger your cream puffs, the longer you'll have to bake them.

For the pastry cream:

In a saucepan over moderate heat, combine sugar, flour and salt. Add the milk slowly, stirring continuously until mixture is thick and bubbly.

Lower the heat, stir for 2 minutes and then remove from heat. In a small bowl, add the milk mixture to the egg yolks slowly, whisking continuously as you're doing so. Return mixture back to pan.

Bring to gently boil for 2 more minutes, adding butter and vanilla. Transfer to a shallow bowl to cool, placing plastic wrap on top of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate.

Once pastry cream has cooled completely, spoon it into a pastry bag fitted with a small tip(I used the same star tip that I used to pipe the cream puffs). Using the tip of a knife, cut a small slit into the side of each cream puff. Insert the tip of the pastry bag into the slit, and squeeze the bag gently until the puff is filled with cream.

Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Adapted from La Fuji Mama and Eats Well With Others