Choux with Hazelnut Praline Cream

Attetiooooooon, everyone!!

This is one of the best cakes I've ever had, and by far the best cream puffs I've ever tasted in my life!

...Ok..., sorry about my over excitement and praising myself this much, but seriously, you've got to try this Hazelnut Praline Cream!

Andy kept telling me how great the cream puff he had the other day was. He told me that some sort of hazelnut butter cream thing was in a big choux pastry... Hummm, sounds yummy...

So, I decided to recreate this amazing sounding dessert.

First I made the hazelnut praline paste. It's very simple.

Ingredients:

Hazelnut (roasted and shelled) 200g

Sugar 200g

Salt pinch

1. Heat up sugar on a low-medium heat until it's golden.

2. Take the pan off the heat, add hazelnuts to coat them well with the sugar.

3. Pour 2 onto a baking sheet and leave to cool down.

4. Blitz the sugar coated nuts in a food processor until it's smooth.

Here is my step-by-step choux pastry recipe.

I mixed this hazelnut praline paste with my favourite double cream (custard and whipped fresh cream). I filled the choux pastry with the hazelnut cream until the cream was oozing out. ;D

Looooook at that!

The light choux pastry is a perfect match to this sweet rich cream.

One thing was I made only three of them and that was NOT enough!

Illustrated Choux Pastry recipe now online!

As I promised on my previous post, the illustrated Choux Pastry recipe is now on my Free Illustrated Recipes - BON APPETIT. - :)

The online version is not a very high resolution file, but if you would like a higher quality version for printing it's available too. Drop me an email, or leave me a comment. xx

Did you know that you can freeze unbaked choux pastries (at the step 8)? So, why not make a batch and freeze them. Next time all you have to do is to take out the frozen choux pastries and defrost them in the fridge overnight then bake as usual. You can enjoy small amount of choux pastries (even as little as one!) freshly made;D

I also tried freezing baked and cream filled choux pastries (the leftovers from the Matcha and Vanilla ones) and had it like an ice-cream....

It was awesome! Try this out too!

Check out BON APPETIT. Choux Pastry recipe.

Matcha & Vanilla Eclair, Choux

Bon Bon Bon Appetit!

Choux pastry filled with a generous amount of cream, especially what I call 'the double cream' (the combination of whipped cream and custard...) has always been one of my favourite things to make and eat.

This time as well as the classic Vanilla custard cream puffs and eclairs, I also made Matcha flavoured ones.

Seriously..., I've said this before but 'I love matcha soooo much!' This matcha double cream takes the already-awesome-cream-puff to the next level.

Look! It's definitely to die for.;D

Choux pastry is not hard to make, yet the end result looks impressive and can be made into different shapes such as Eclairs, or even with different colours! (Have you seen my Halloween puffs? ;)

I'm now working on my illustrated recipe for choux pastry that will be soon on BON APPETIT., so please bare with me! Meanwhile you can enjoy my quick fun choux pastry making video on Instagram;)

Here comes the Cream puff family♥︎

This is how I make basic custard.
Ingredients:
Egg yolk 2

Sugar 50g

Flour 1 tbsp

Milk 200g

Vanilla beans (1/4-1/2)

1. Mix egg yolk and sugar together.

2. Add flour into 1.

3. In a small pot warm up milk with vanilla (Do not boil!).

4. Slowly mix in the milk into 2.

5. Put 4 back into the pot.

6. Cook the mixture on a low-medium heat until the bubble starts to appear (Be careful not to burn the bottom). *

7. Cook another minute, then pour the mixture in a container to cool it down.

*For Matcha custard, mix 1 tsp Match powder with 1/2 tsp water to make a paste. At step 6 add the paste and mix well.

Halloween Cream Puff

Scary looking pumpkins and fancy dresses... yes, Halloween is here again!

I've been doing some Halloween baking this week and this is one of them.... Halloween special black Jack-o'-lantern cream puffs1

The pastry itself is my usual choux pastry with black food colouring. However the cream inside is the special thing of these guys! It's Pumpkin Cream! I added pureed pumpkin to custard cream and combined with whipped cream.
They are seriously, dangerously tasty!

It was very difficult to see if the pastries were going brown or not, but I think I judged it well. ;) They looked a bit like giant snails... ;D

Happy Halloween, everyone! Don't open the front door to strangers...;)

Christmas party at Tinny's

This Saturday we had a Christmas party at Tinny's and, OH YES! I was responsible for desserts and cakes (What Tinny calls Yumicakes...;D).

I was so excited to make cakes for everyone and had so many ideas about what to bring, and...I ended up making... profiteroles, fruits tartlets, Swiss rolls, cheesy scones, mini croissants, and a loaf of bread...

For the profiteroles, I made mini choux buns and filled them with three different creams, cream patissiere, vanilla flavoured fresh cream, and chocolate cream.

There were also two different tartlets. One with vanilla tart and cream cheese topped with strawberries and blue berries, the other with chocolate tart and chocolate cream cheese topped with banana and cherry.

Swiss rolls came in twos too... a soft vanilla and a rich chocolate...

I was too busy eating that I forgot to take phtotos of scones and mini croissants... (they were the ones that appeared on my blog before.) I brought them in the edible bread bowls.

After all those food, my belly was so full (I felt still full even the following day. I had to go for a run...)!

I had such a good time and it was very nice seeing and catching up with everyone.

And of course..., special thanks to Tinny for a great time and letting me bring so many cakes. ;D

Croquembouche

Christmas is nearly there and I made my way of Christmas tree cake..., croquembouche. :)

There were quite a few steps to complete this Christmas treat. First, baking choux buns. Second, making three types of fillings...creme patissiere, vanilla cream and cream cheese icing. Third, melting sugar and make caramel. And finally, fill up the choux buns with those lovely creams and then build the tower of AWESOMENESS!

I was very happy when my choux buns came out from the oven. They were all nicely shaped and well risen. That was a good start. :D

I was satisfied with all of my fillings too:) Especially the creme patissiere was rich with vanilla and when I filled the choux buns with it, I couldn't help trying one... oooh, yum;)

My sugar work went pretty well. I was being careful not to make too much mess, but once the sugar went all over the place I went crazy too... All in all, the choux bun tower was built solid. Very promising:)

I finished with some raspberries and icing to give more Christmasy look. Hummm, I think my croquembouche came out very good:)

I brought it to the Christmas drink last night and it went down very well. Hope everyone enjoyed my sweet Christmas tree:D