almond cream puff experiment
Today while at the grocery store a container of ecological whipping cream somehow found its way into my basket, so when I got home I went looking for inspiration of what to do with it. 30 seconds with google convinced me that the first handful of main dishes that involve cream also contain ingredients that I find horrid, and that the first handful of deserts only needed the cream as a topping. So instead I turned to the recipe box that my mother gave me many years ago.
In that box I found a recipe I had never tried for Cream Puffs. The recipe is in mom's handwriting, and I guess that it must have been her mother's recipe. I don't recall ever having eaten them before. Of course, since I don't have a sweet tooth at all, but I love fat, I decided to try the recipe replacing the sugar in the filling with almond meal.
The original filling recipe said:
Cream Filling for Cream Puffs
Heat 1 cup milk just up to boiling point. Mix 1/2 c. sugar, 1 T cornstarch & dash of salt together & add to milk. Stir until thick, & add 1 beaten egg. When mixed well take off from fire. Add 1/2 t vanilla.
Combine this with same amount of whipped cream, for filling the puffs.
The original Cream Puff recipe said:
Cream Puffs
1/2 c. butter 1 c. boiling water
1/2 t. salt 1 c. flour
4 eggs
Combine butter, salt & water. Heat to boiling. Sift flour & measure. Add to boiling mixture. Beat vigorously until mixture leaves sides of pan & does not cling to spoon. Remove from fire. Cool slightly. Add unbeaten eggs one at a time until mixture is smooth. Drop by tablespoons into well oiled muffin tins. Bat in 400 degree F oven 20 min. Lower heat to 350 degrees F & bake for 10 min o until firm & dry. Cool. Cut a slit in the side of each puff with a sharp knife. Using spoon or pastry tube, insert cream filling. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
The recipe didn't indicate how many these should make, but I happen to own 12 silicon muffin cups, so I lightly rubbed their insides with buttery fingers, figuring that silicon wouldn't need to be "well oiled". It turns out that this much batter is enough to put a bit more than 1 T of filling in each of the 12 cups. The batter is, of course, delicious, as one would expect with so much butter and eggs. I really liked the texture change when it transformed into the state where it really does leave the side of the pan and not cling to the spoon.
When baking these I forgot about the fact that when one bakes with a fan on in the oven one should use a lower temperature than suggested in recipes for ovens without fans (my oven could be used without the fan, but the few times I tried it without it was so uneven in its heating, I have never done it since). Therefore the puffs were already golden brown after 9 minutes, so I turned the heat down then, even though it was 11 minutes early, and, not wanting them to burn, I dropped it all the way to 100 C, instead of the ~175 C that the recipe called for. After the full 20 minutes they were looking firm and dry to my eye, but, it turns out, that I had no idea what I was looking for, as they sagged after being taken out of the oven, so I took them out of the muffin cups to a cooling rack, and put them back into the oven at 100 C with the fan on again for an unmeasured amount of time.
The recipe cards didn't indicate in which order to make them, so I tried doing the puffs first, and cooking up the filling while they baked. However, if I do these again, I will do the filling first, so that it has more time to cool before I want to mix it with the whipped cream.
I guess that if I had tried the recipe as written I probably would have liked it anyway. 1/2 cup sugar to that much dairy and 1 cup of flour wouldn't really be that sweet. However, using the almond meal instead of the sugar made it super yummy for me, so unless I am making these for others who like sweet stuff, I will probably just use the almond version without sugar (also no vanilla, as I didn't think it needed it).
I think that these would have been even nicer if I had managed to bake them till they didn't fall, but even so, I was quite happy with them. I had four for dinner, followed by some fruit salad. My tummy reports that as rich as they are, two would have made more sense, and I should have had some veg, instead. But all but four fit on one plate, which is now covered and in the fridge, so I will find out tomorrow if they are any good left over.
In that box I found a recipe I had never tried for Cream Puffs. The recipe is in mom's handwriting, and I guess that it must have been her mother's recipe. I don't recall ever having eaten them before. Of course, since I don't have a sweet tooth at all, but I love fat, I decided to try the recipe replacing the sugar in the filling with almond meal.
The original filling recipe said:
Cream Filling for Cream Puffs
Heat 1 cup milk just up to boiling point. Mix 1/2 c. sugar, 1 T cornstarch & dash of salt together & add to milk. Stir until thick, & add 1 beaten egg. When mixed well take off from fire. Add 1/2 t vanilla.
Combine this with same amount of whipped cream, for filling the puffs.
The original Cream Puff recipe said:
Cream Puffs
1/2 c. butter 1 c. boiling water
1/2 t. salt 1 c. flour
4 eggs
Combine butter, salt & water. Heat to boiling. Sift flour & measure. Add to boiling mixture. Beat vigorously until mixture leaves sides of pan & does not cling to spoon. Remove from fire. Cool slightly. Add unbeaten eggs one at a time until mixture is smooth. Drop by tablespoons into well oiled muffin tins. Bat in 400 degree F oven 20 min. Lower heat to 350 degrees F & bake for 10 min o until firm & dry. Cool. Cut a slit in the side of each puff with a sharp knife. Using spoon or pastry tube, insert cream filling. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
The recipe didn't indicate how many these should make, but I happen to own 12 silicon muffin cups, so I lightly rubbed their insides with buttery fingers, figuring that silicon wouldn't need to be "well oiled". It turns out that this much batter is enough to put a bit more than 1 T of filling in each of the 12 cups. The batter is, of course, delicious, as one would expect with so much butter and eggs. I really liked the texture change when it transformed into the state where it really does leave the side of the pan and not cling to the spoon.
When baking these I forgot about the fact that when one bakes with a fan on in the oven one should use a lower temperature than suggested in recipes for ovens without fans (my oven could be used without the fan, but the few times I tried it without it was so uneven in its heating, I have never done it since). Therefore the puffs were already golden brown after 9 minutes, so I turned the heat down then, even though it was 11 minutes early, and, not wanting them to burn, I dropped it all the way to 100 C, instead of the ~175 C that the recipe called for. After the full 20 minutes they were looking firm and dry to my eye, but, it turns out, that I had no idea what I was looking for, as they sagged after being taken out of the oven, so I took them out of the muffin cups to a cooling rack, and put them back into the oven at 100 C with the fan on again for an unmeasured amount of time.
The recipe cards didn't indicate in which order to make them, so I tried doing the puffs first, and cooking up the filling while they baked. However, if I do these again, I will do the filling first, so that it has more time to cool before I want to mix it with the whipped cream.
I guess that if I had tried the recipe as written I probably would have liked it anyway. 1/2 cup sugar to that much dairy and 1 cup of flour wouldn't really be that sweet. However, using the almond meal instead of the sugar made it super yummy for me, so unless I am making these for others who like sweet stuff, I will probably just use the almond version without sugar (also no vanilla, as I didn't think it needed it).
I think that these would have been even nicer if I had managed to bake them till they didn't fall, but even so, I was quite happy with them. I had four for dinner, followed by some fruit salad. My tummy reports that as rich as they are, two would have made more sense, and I should have had some veg, instead. But all but four fit on one plate, which is now covered and in the fridge, so I will find out tomorrow if they are any good left over.