I had a leftover of cake filling the other day and I was looking for a way to make use of it, but I had very little time at hand. So I decided to make cream puffs with the intention of filling them with the leftover pastry cream. I don’t believe I have made or even had cream puffs since I am 15 years old (and I am not going to put down here how many years that makes). I am wondering why, though. After all, it is such a classic, invariably tasty sweet and – there is always room for one more, isn’t there?

Anyway, my endeavours had a rather ironic twist: When I was done, I realized that I had not enough filling for all of the cream puffs, so I ended up making a filling of whipped cream. And yes, it was so good! 😉

Sanni

Ingredients:

For the choux pastry (approx. 8 pieces):

• ¼ l of water
• 25 grams of butter
• 75 grams of all-purpose flour
• 15 grams of starch flour
• approx. 3 medium eggs
• ½ tablespoon baking powder

For the filling:

• 400 grams of whipping cream
• 1 packet of stabilizer („Sahnesteif„)
• a few teaspoons of finely granulated sugar
• 3 to 4 tablespoons vanilla sugar (here is recipe for home-made vanilla sugar: Ginger Orange Bicuits)
• 200 grams of fresh raspberries, washed and dried (or any other type of berry)
• For decoration: a few tablespoons of icing sugar

Preparation:

Preparing the choux pastry:

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius (fan oven), and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. Pour the water into a saucepan and add the butter. Bring to the boil.
3. Pass the flour and the starch through a fine mesh and mix. Once the water is boiling and the butter is melted, take the saucepan off the heat. Add the flour and starch in one go and stir vigorously until you have one smooth lump of dough (I use an electric mixer for this).
4. Put on the stove again (medium to high temperature) and turn inside the sauce pan for approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
5. Take off the stove and fill the dough into a mixing bowl. I recommend using one with a high rim.
6. Add two of the eggs and beat well with an electric mixer. Start with kneading hooks and change to stirring hooks as soon as the consistency of the dough permits.
7. Mix the remaining egg and then add to the dough bit by bit as much as is needed. The dough should become very shiny and not too liquid. Then add the baking powder.
8. Pipe the dough through a pastry bag or use 2 tablespoons to place small balls on the baking tray. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius (fan oven) for 25 minutes, then let cool down completely.

Preparing the filling:

1. Pour the cream into a mixing bowl and add the stabilizer. Add sugar for sweetening to taste.
2. Beat the cream until stiff. Then fold in the vanilla sugar.
3. Cut the (cooled down) puff pastry into two halves and pipe the cream into the wholes that have formed during the baking process with a pastry bag. Add a couple of raspberries to each cream puff and then put the two halves together.
4. Decorate with icing sugar.
5. Consume very fresh. The puff pastry also perserves well in the freezer.