Cream Puff

A reader has written in to request for the recipe of cream puff from Ah Jiao's Excellent Chef programme. I am a fan of the programme and so far I have tried a few recipes and each recipe is a proven success and so far they have never let me down. I had coincidently baked some cream puffs for my kids' birthday party and therefore able to share here.

I baked in 2 batches and each was a success. It is very much depend on your liking as to what kind of texture you prefer. Some prefers crunchy crispy top while others prefer soft puffs. If you prefer the former ones then fill the filling right before serving and it is in my opinion that the puffs best to be baked near to serving time to maintain its crispiness for this purpose. Also in order to achieve this, you may want to slit open or poke a hole at the bottom of the puff as this will help the hot steam escape after the first 20 - 30 minutes bake. This was what I did. Being inexperienced as this was my very first attempt and that I had read from other baking sites about cream puff baking, I also scraped out the damp dough inside the puffs at this point and popped them back into the switch-off mode oven with the door left ajar for another 10 to 20 minutes. All these were done to maintain its crispiness. However, as this is not a crisp crust puff recipe so no matter what, the puff will turn soft eventually and even softer if you were to fill them up with your favourite filling and keep them in the refrigerator for a few hours.

I personally feel that the steps of slitting the puffs and scraping the damp dough are not necessary if you like the soft puff type; like those that we usually get from most of the local bakery stalls. In fact, I discovered that many of my friends prefer soft puffs than the crispy ones. As for myself I like both textures. I like the crispiness and crunchiness of the freshly baked puffs which are filled with very chilled cream and also those soft ones that almost melt in your mouth! It was a regret though that I was not in time to get the recipe and the ingredients to make a durian cream filling, otherwise to me this recipe was super excellent!




CREAM PUFF

Ingredients

85g water
50g unsalted butter
60g bread flour
125g whole egg

Method

1.  Pour water and butter into a saucepan and let it boil until butter is melted.

2. Pour in the flour and cook it. Remove the pan from the stove. Stir and cook using residual heat.

3. Transfer the mixture to a bowl to bring down the temperature. Continue to stir until the mixture thicken.

4. Add eggs slowly in 3 batches and continue to stir with a spatula until the ingredients come together.

5. Scoop the mixture in a piping bag and pipe on the baking sheet about 3cm diameter for each puff.

6. Spray water on the puff.

7. Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 200deg C. Switch off the oven slit open the puff or/and scrape the damp dough and pop the puffs into the oven with door left ajar for another 10 -20 minutes.

Notes:

1.If the mixture is too thick, you may add a little more egg but not otherwise as you can't do anything if the consistency is too thin.

2. The right texture is when the batter coated on the spatula, and  that you are able to see bits of the dough hanging from it like a triangle flag.

3. You may use spoon to scoop if you do not have piping bags.

4. Spraying of water on the dough will help the dough to crack more and evenly.

5. The flour must be cooked with the water and butter otherwise the puff won't puff!

6. Always do an upwards piping so that the puff will rise and not outwards piping.