Cream Puffin'

After a lovely 3 day visit with Cousin Dan - the other half of hubz comedy duo, I trotted off to  my bed off to finish up the last chapter of "The Great and Secret Show" no sooner was I done with the last page when I was out, out for the count. and promptly woke up at 3:30 AM., after some strange dream about shopping at the mall and running into Barney Stinson. as soon as I popped my eyes open , all I could think was Cream Puffs, just like dad used to make. and let me tell ya, most of the time, it was packaged foods, or basic cooking, dad being an ex- army was particularly fond of shit on a shingle. but on the weekends he would whip up banana "pancakes" ( some major confusion in my life over what pancakes really are , but that is a story for another day) and these , lovely yum yum's. he always used vanilla. and I always felt so loved and special. my gruff dad was in the kitchen making me a yummy, sweet confection,.

so off to the kitchen I went and before I even had the coffee going, was whipping up a batch of Choux dough. and proceeded to make my hubz a very, very, very happy hubz. and a request to make these "all the time"

so without further ado, here is your recipe :

Choux Pastry  Dough :

• 1 c H2O
• 1/2 c. butter ( if unsalted add 1/2 tsp. salt esp. if making a savory puff or add 2 tsp. of sugar if a sweet puff)

  heat to rolling boil, turn heat down, add 1 c. flour. stir until makes a dough ball. remove from heat.

    add 

• 4 eggs. 1 at a time. stirring to incorporate well, between each egg.

Now you can add dough to a ziploc bag, and cut corner off, or a pastry bag if you have one.
Myself, I just drop dough by tbsp. full onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
( note you can also shape dough into a long john form, and make long johns if you wish.)

• bake in a 400 degree preheated oven for 30-40 minutes. With choux dough it is more important to check color etc. than exact time match. if you take it out too soon, your puffs will fall. I usually bake mine right around 40 minutes, until a nice deep golden brown. 

• let cool. cut tops off and fill with :

 I added chocolate pudding, but you can do choc, vanilla, fruit jam. what have you. go crazy.

once filled, I shake confectioner's sugar thru my spider ( a very handy kitchen tool!)

but you can also drizzle chocolate glaze on them if you wanted. and then swat the hands away while you let them chill in the fridge.

oh so easy, even  yummier and they have a nice little WOW factor. so much that I am thinking of whipping up an extra batch and taking to the annual Diesing Christmas Happy Hour. Yes we throw a happy hour bar over at Aunt Jules house before we head over to Gramma D's dinner, what can I say, we like to do things right ;) anyhooo;s

once done they look something like this :

You can also do savory cream puffs, I found a recipe for what looks to be a fabulous mushroom pate. oh yeah. will be whipping those up for me perty soon. yes sweets are for the hubz , savory is all  me.

and with that I say enjoy and scoot my butt off to finish up some holiday knitting. why I leave it 'til the last moment I will never know!!