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Cream Puffs- Chef Eric Crowley
Step 1: Gathering the ingredients
Here is the list of ingredients and other items you will need to complete this dessert.
4 eggs + 1 additional egg for egg wash
1 cup water
1 cup flour
½ cup butter
½ teaspoon salt + 1/8 teaspoon salt for egg wash
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
powdered sugar to sprinkle on top of finished dessert
muffin tin or baking sheet
parchment paper
stand mixer for machine beating or wooden spoon for hand beating
flour sifter or wire mesh colander
wire rack for cooling
Cooking directions Place the butter, water and salt in a saucepan and heat until it boils. While the mixture is boiling, sift the flour.
If you do not have a special flour sifter, you can just use a fine meshed metal colander. You measure the flour into the colander. Then place it into a round bowl that will come up over the sides of the colander. Shake until all of the flour is in the bowl. If there are some little flour balls left in the colander, you can just push them through.
Once the water, butter and salt mixture had come to a boil, add the flour and stir. This will cause the mixture to form a ball. The mixture should pull away from the sides of the pan and not stick to the spoon.
Step 2: Finishing the dough
Once the dough is formed, move the mixture to a mixing bowl.
At this point, you can do one of two things:
You let the dough cool for a bit and then add the eggs one at a time and mix completely before adding another. If you are working by hand, this may be the preferred method.
You can put the dough into a stand mixer, along with the eggs, and beat immediately on medium speed. If you don’t work fast, the eggs will start to cook, and you really don’t want scrambled eggs in your dough.2
Add the vanilla at this time and beat the dough until it forms a sticky, elastic mixture. Then, you are ready to pipe the dough or drop by round tablespoons onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment. If you grease the cookie sheet, the bottoms of your puffs may burn. An alternative would be a silicone muffin pan or a non-stick muffin pan. You can add an egg wash glaze at this point by beating together 1 egg and 1/8 teaspoon of salt and brushing the mixture on the top of the dough. This will give it a nice amber color when cooked.
Cook the puffs in a 425 degree oven for 25 minutes. At this point, poke a hole in the side of each with a toothpick. This will prevent the dough from collapsing. Put the dough back in the oven for another 5 minutes. After that, turn off the oven but leave the oven door open a bit. Leave the dough in for another 10-15 minutes to let it dry out. Then you can let them cool on a wire rack
