Chou à La Crème

Who knew choux pastry/cream puff/profiterole/whatever you want to call it was so easy to make? I remember going to the Korean bakeries with my mom when I was younger and she'd buy me and my siblings a small box to share. Back then I thought they were called, "shoe cream" and always wondered why.

Anyway, you can fill these with just about anything. Vanilla whipped cream, ice cream, custard, chocolate, fruit, macaroni, spaghetti... ok just kidding about the last two. I filled mine with vanilla pudding... from a box! (gasp!)

Ingredients: (Choux pastry from Joy of Baking)
1/2 cup Flour
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
4 tbsp Unsalted Butter
1/2 cup Water
2 Eggs, lightly beaten

Egg glaze:
1 Egg
1/8 tsp Salt

Filling:
1 pkg (3.4 oz) Instant Vanilla Pudding
1/2 cup Milk
1 cup Heavy Cream

Make the filling by mixing the pudding mix with the milk and heavy cream. Refrigerate to set.

Preheat oven to 400. Sift/whisk the flour, salt, and sugar together in a small bowl. Place the water and butter in a small saucepan over medium high and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and quickly add the flour mixture. Mix and return to heat. Continue to mix until the dough forms a sort of ball (doesn't stay in pieces). Transfer to a mixing bowl and mix at low speed. Next you're going to add the eggs but make sure that your dough isn't too hot that it'll cook the eggs. Mix until you achieve a smooth consistency.

Next, on parchment paper/silpat, spoon out the dough in 12 mounds. Whisk together the egg glaze and brush on top of each mound. It looks really weird at this point and you'll wonder, how does this become pastry? But it does!

Bake for about 15 minutes (it's amazing at how fast they rise) and then turn down the heat to 350 and bake for about 35 minutes more. Turn off the oven and leave the door open ajar and let the pastries cool for 10-15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Why do you do this changing of temperature and cooling in the oven? You have to make sure the insides are dry or else your pastry will deflate and you will be sad. Some people say to poke a hole in the side to let the steam escape, but I didn't find that I needed to do that.

Next comes the fun part! You have two ways of filling your pastry:

Cut it in half and fill like a sandwich or:

Make a small incision in the side or bottom and pipe in the filling!

Finish off with a sprinkle or two, or four or eleven, of confectioners sugar.

Et voilà! Bon appètit mes amis!