Cream Puffs
My neighbor Eric has been promising me that we’d make cream puffs before he leaves to return to Alaska. Tulane’s Law School graduation was yesterday, so we knew we’d have to fit it in this week. Wednesday morning we both got up at 8 a.m. and met on my porch for a rendezvous to Whole Foods for flour (the only ingredient we didn’t have between the two of us). Since you can’t leave Whole Foods without spending $30, we also got my favorite $.99 French boule and melted gruyere cheese and berries for breakfast, and iced coffee from Cafe Luna.
The Cooks Illustrated recipe was fairly simple, although it had more steps than the pyramids. Rather than detail the process, just imagine 4 hours of stirring, baking, waiting, squeezing, sweating and eating. The cream puffs were amazing and light and perfect, and the almond pudding we made from scratch was great by itself. I ate 7 puffs before wrapping a few up to freeze for later, ate 4 later in the day, and only have 4 left in the freezer. I’m glad we didn’t tell anyone we were making them, because I was NOT planning to share, except for the photos.
Preparation: pastry bag and parchment paper.
Our cream puffs were a bit on the big side.
Pastries puffed and cooled.
Cream puff pan post-pastry parchment paper.
Cream puffs puffed with almond pudding.
you have never made me pastries or any kind of puff. they look amazing and i want one.