Mothers and Grandmothers: The Cream Puff Wars...Or How I Was Beaten By An Egg

This recipe is brought to me by my grandma Carlton, the matriarch of the entire clan on my father’s side.

The best thing about this recipe: This is an impressive dessert. These are soft, crispy, light and dense all at the same time. If you can get the hang of them, you can make a very inexpensive dessert (or, if you are my dad, a snack).

Cream Filling:

2/3 Cup of sugar

5 Tablespoons of flour

¼ Teaspoon of salt

2 Cups of milk

2 eggs or 4 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1 Teaspoon of vanilla

Combine dry ingredients in top of double boiler:

Add milk gradually:

Cook over boiling water stirring constantly, cover and cook 10 minutes.

Stir in a little of the hot mixture into beaten eggs and slowly add to hot mixture (to avoid curdling). Cook over hot mixture 2 minutes (not boiling) stirring constantly. Chill, add vanilla.

Cream Puffs:

Ok, so I had some major troubles with the original recipe. I don’t know, maybe ovens were different in the 1950s, or maybe the humidity in VA messes with butter too much, but every stage was wrong. I will do a side by side comparison with my first attempt and my second.

1 Cup Flour, sift, measure add salt

1 Teaspoon Salt

½ Cup Shortening (butter preferred)

1 Cup Water

4 eggs

1^st Attempt

Combine shortening and boiling water in page, over low till melted.

So far so good…I used room temperature butter.

Add flour all at one time—stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball and leaves sides of pan. Remove from heat.

Still seams ok…

Add one egg at a time:

Looks good

Beat thoroughly after each addition:

Hmm, a little runny

Beat until thick dough it formed.

What the…? Every egg is making it runnier…this is like a roux!

Drop by Tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheet---about 2 inches apart.

 

This was about the time that I realized that something went terribly, terribly wrong…

Do not open oven while baking, at 450, for 50 minutes and no beads of moisture appear.

FAIL

So I cried into my yogurt parfait and drowned my sorrows with sweet, sweet, creamy goodness.

2^nd Attempt

Ok, so my oven will burn the bottoms of Bisquick biscuits at 425, so I really can’t cook anything that high. I went online and found a temperature that sounded more like what I needed. Preheat oven for 400 degrees.

This time, I combined shortening and boiling water in the pan, over low heat until melted. I find shortening really helps me maintain the correct consistency for chocolate chip cookies, where butter seems to flatten them. Next time, I may use butter flavored shortening, for fun.

I also bought all new self-rising flour and added it all at one time and stirred vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball and leaves the side of the pan. You can see that it looks much better already.

Remove from heat. Add one egg at a time.

Beat thoroughly after each addition until thick dough is formed

Drop by Tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheet---about 2 inches apart. I also used my finger to swirl the tops and round them out.

Oohhh, much better…

Cook at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, and then lower the temperature to 350 for 30 minutes. Do not open the oven. 

These are huge!

When cool cut slit inside and fill with cream filling or whipped cream. Chill in refrigerator.

I’m also not entirely sure that the pudding was the correct consistency, it was runnier than the whipped cream, and I actually preferred the whipped cream. Cutting the side was also difficult, and I wasn't sure how much pudding to put in each puff. I guess use your discretion?

As the French would say…Boff!

Vegetarian: 

This is vegetarian

Back Story:

This recipe comes to me via my father’s mother. She was the first one in her family to be born in America, and a very classy lady. Although she is easy going, she is very independent, strong, and knows her own mind. Much like the cream puff she has a sweetness and lightness about her. I am not at all surprised that she would choose such a classic French dessert for her dish.  I am not the only one in our family who found the simple cream puff difficult and messy, and that has always surprised her. She would talk about how easy it was to make them, while watching her 4 young children on any given afternoon. I think it is really interesting that something that is so hard for the rest of us can be done with the mere flick of her wrist. I hope that I can also face all of the troubles of life with the same alacrity.

Note: I will be finishing my series on the Chicago Saga next week. In the meantime, I am creating a new series: Mothers and Grandmothers. This will include Carltons, Bassingthwaites, Ryans and Harneys.