Cream Puffs with Custard Sauce
This recipe can make 9 medium size cream puffs.
Ingredients
Custard Sauce
1 egg yolk
15g granulated sugar
12.5g cornstarch
125g milk
10g unsalted butter
To mix with the custard sauce:
150g heavy cream
10g granulated sugar
Craquelin
62.5g unsalted butter
41g powdered sugar
75g cake flour
Choux Pastry
22.5g unsalted butter
25g water
25g milk
0.5g salt
1g sugar
30g cake flour
55g eggs
Notes: By cake flour, I mean low protein flour, which normally contains 7-9% protein (Mine is around 8%). Not self-rising flour.
Steps:
- In a clean bowl, mix well softened butter and sugar and cake flour until well combined. Transfer the dough onto the parchment paper, cover with another piece of parchment paper, and use a rolling pin to roll it flat (around 2 mm thick). Turn the baking tray upside down, and place the whole piece of dough onto the baking tray, send into the fridge to chill until set.
- In a pot, put in butter, salt, sugar, water and milk, heat until it comes to a boil. Add in cake flour and quickly mix well. Keep the heat low and keep mixing and pressing the batter to cook for 1-2 minutes until there is no dry flour left or a thin film of batter forms sticking to the bottom of the pot. Transfer the dough into a clean bowl, mix or whisk it a little bit to help it cool. Crack and mix well the eggs. Gradually add the eggs into the batter and use a hand mixer to beat in the eggs until well combined.
*Here is a tip to tell if the dough is ready: use a spatula, scrape the dough or dip the spatula into the dough and pull out to see if there is some dough hanging on the spatula's head and looks like an inverted triangle. Then it is ready.
- Line the baking tray with parchment paper or a baking mat. Pour all the batter into a piping bag with a piping tip. Pipe out the batter into 3 cm wide dots.
- Preheat the oven to 365℉(185℃). Take the craquelin out of the fridge, and use a small ring to cut out some round pieces (around 3 cm in diameter). Top each cream puffs with one round piece. Send into the oven to bake for 15 minutes, then 325℉(160℃) to bake for 20 minutes.
- Making the custard sauce: in a clean bowl, mix well egg yolks and sugar, add in cornstarch and mix well. Heat the milk until simmer; add it into the batter while using a whisk quickly whisk them together until well combined. Pour the batter into the pot, keep the heat low and keep stirring and whisking until thickened. Off heat, add in the butter, whisk until well combined. Transfer the sauce to a clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set in the fridge to cool.
- Take the cream puffs out of the oven; let them cool down on the cooling rack. Take the custard sauce out of the fridge, add in some heavy cream and sugar, and use a hand mixer to beat until it forms stiff peaks. Put all the whipped cream into a piping bag. Fill the cream puffs with custard sauce, dust the cream puffs with powdered sugar and serve.
