Cream Puffs

Is there anything you dread learning how to make? Maybe because you've heard it's difficult and time-consuming? For me, cream puffs planted themselves somewhere on that list and stayed there for years.

I got quite good at making anginetti cream puffs. You buy Stella D'oro anginetti cookies, which coincidentally are cream puff shaped, slice the tops off, add filling, and replace the tops. You can find the simple recipe here. I planned to make these for a Christmas party I went to, oh gosh, about a month ago now.

I bought Cool Whip, cream cheese, and crushed pineapple for the filling and then went to a few different stores looking for anginetti cookies, only to find there were none. The shelves where Stella D'oro cookies can usually be found looked as though they had been ransacked.

I didn't have any other recipes with me and really had it in my head that I wanted to make these simple cream puffs. I hadn't had them in years and once I started thinking about them, I was actually craving them. I was disappointed I couldn't find the cookies and annoyed with myself for not having a backup plan.

So I went home, looked around the cabinets a little, and finally decided that if I had all the ingredients to make real cream puff shells, then that is what I'd do. I looked in some of my cookbooks and finally decided on a recipe from Joy of Cooking. It was the most clearly written and seemed easy to follow.

I didn't know the first thing about making pate a choux, like, for starters, that you make it on the stove. Stephanie Jaworski explains this well on JoyofBaking.com:

"Choux pastry or pate a choux is an unusual pastry in that flour is added to a boiled mixture of butter and water (like a roux) and then this mixture is cooked until it forms a smooth ball of dough. After cooling the dough to lukewarm, eggs are slowly added and the dough is beaten until it becomes a smooth thick paste."

With the choux pastry all prepared, I just needed to make the little spoonfuls of it I was putting on the cookie sheet turn magically into cream puffs. And even though I thought it would take several tries, they came out perfectly the first time. They didn't deflate or do anything else catastrophic.

The only problem now was that I had these light, airy, upscale puffs and a Cool Whip-based filling. I'm not knocking Cool Whip or anything, but these cream puffs deserved better. Unfortunately, I didn't have the right ingredients on hand to make a traditional filling and party time was approaching.

I used the Cool Whip-pineapple filling anyways, sprinkled the puffs with a little powdered sugar, and they were actually a big hit.

And just like that, I got over my fear of making cream puffs. I almost can't wait to make them again, using real filling, and maybe I'll make eclairs as well.