Nutritional tips at the end of recipe.
What kind of pastries tray would be without sweet cream puffs ? 🙂 They aren’t really dietetic, but rejoice the spirit and they will have a great success!
Did you know that the term derives from the French beignet?Beignet means: “stroke, often in the face, which generates a bump or bulge .” The origin of puffs, in truth, is very ancient…already Romans prepared them in the occasion of the feast of the Kalends of March. They represented a great way to existing stocks of eggs and butter in excess. But given the large number of revelers, it was necessary to achieve a relatively quick recipe and so, here we have the puffs!
RECIPE
Preparation time: 1 hour – Cooking time: 20 minutes – Difficulty: Medium
Ingredients (for about 25 puffs ) :
For the choux pastry :
125ml of water
100g flour 00
2 eggs
50g butter
a pinch of salt
half a teaspoon of sugar
For the custard :
350ml milk
4 egg yolks
100g sugar
25g rice starch
25g corn starch
seeds of a vanilla bean
Icing :
1 egg white
200g icing sugar
30g cocoa powder
If you prefer the icing of another color, you can replace the cocoa with food coloring and use 220 – 230g of icing sugar .
Preparation:
Start preparing for the choux pastry for puffs. Put the butter, sugar, a pinch of salt and water in a saucepan and boil (photo 1) .
1
Then add the flour and stir over at low heat for about 4 minutes, until the dough comes off the sides of the pan and has formed a slight white film on the bottom (photo 2) .
2
Remove from heat and let cool completely. Meanwhile, beat the eggs with a fork, and when the flour and butter mixture is cool, add the eggs slowly.
Mix well, the compound will absorb the eggs slowly, stirring vigorously. At this point the dough is ready, and you can transfer it to a pastry bag with plain tip, not too small (photo 3). Preheat the oven to 180 ° C.
3
Now you can create small balls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leavinig some centimeters among each other, because they will grow during cooking (photo 4). Bake for about 20 minutes, when they are puffed and golden, you can remove from the oven.
4
Now prepare the cream: put the milk in a saucepan (keep aside a cup) with vanilla seeds. Heat to almost boiling, then turn off and let cool.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar. When the milk is warm, pour in the eggs, stirring wire (if the milk is too hot it will cook the eggs immediately and the mixture will form lumps). Pour the mixture into the saucepan used previously (photo 5) and add the starches, stirring constantly.
5
Cook at low heat, adding the remained milk. Continue to stir until boiling. Continue cooking for 2-3 minutes and then turn off and let cool, stirring occasionally (do not let it thicken too much during cooking, because it will become thicker during the cooling ) .
Now we can fill our puffs: when they are cooled, transfer the cream into a pastry bag, this time with a thin tip, filled the puffs making a small hole at the base (photo 6) .
6
Now we just have to prepare the icing to complete them: mix icing sugar and cocoa with egg white in a bowl. It has to become thick and creamy. With a pastry bag or a spoon pour the icing on the cream puffs and let it firm up at room temperature.
mmm … perfect for the end of your Sunday lunch … and if there is come left, lick the spoon used for the icing … 🙂
Tip: for the dough used for puffs it’s better using eggs at room temperature. The choux pastry should swell and dry well, so that inside there is ” the place ” for cream , so do not bring them out from the oven too soon, they could become flabby! It would be a shame!
Nutrition Tips : these pastries are not exactly friends of thediet, but , as I always say, the dessert is good for the heart! So do not overdo it and allow yourself one after lunch on Sunday!
It’s important to use fresh eggs to prepare the custard. The cream is cooked, then we eliminate every problem about salmonella infections. Now let’s see what are the virtues of egg yolk, the part of the egg that has a bad reputation, but rich in nutrients. We find the lipid fraction in the yolk of the egg, but contrary to what is expected, this has a low content of saturated fatty acids and a high content of linoleic acid (it is an essential fatty acid for the body). Even for those who suffer of high cholesterol, 2 eggs per week are not dangerous, the egg is rich in protein, vitamins and iron. BUT, it is necessary, however, to consider eggs “hidden” you are taking the diet (eg pasta prepared with eggs, omelettes, quiches, pastries, etc.).
I hope you enjoyed this sweetness … see you for the next recipe 🙂