Monday, November 10, 2008

Pumpkin Cream Puffs

At this time of year you will see many pumpkins appear everywhere in the markets. I bought half and made few pumpkin cheese bread but before that let me share with you the pumpkin cream puffs made by leftover pumpkins from the bread recipe. I mixed some mashed pumpkin with custard and whipped cream together to produce the fillings. It's something different and tasty too!
Recipe:
For the Puff: 70g plain flour/3 beaten eggs/100g water/60g unsalted butter/Pinch of sugar and salt

For the custard: 3 egg yolks/200ml milk/60g sugar/20g plain flour/10g unsalted butter/1 tsp vanilla extract/120g pumpkin puree/150 ml whipping cream/30g chocolate
How I made it:
  1. For the puff, boil the water, butter and pinch of sugar and salt in a cooking pan until its bubbly. Off the heat, add in all the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine and become a smooth dough.
  2. Add half of the beaten eggs and mix (this stage is a bit hard work but please patient and keep stirring until the egg mix into the dough.)
  3. Once the eggs completely mix with the dough, you will find it quite dry and hardly to mix. Add the beaten eggs little by little into the dough and continue mixing. You might not finish using the beaten eggs. You will need to have a smooth and silky consistency of the mixture. When you spoon up the mixture, it should drop back to the pan very slowly. The mixture should not too dry or too wet.
  4. Once you get the right consistency of mixture, transfer it into a piping bag and pipe out about 20 dollops of mixture on a baking tray with baking paper.
  5. Dip your fingers with some water and gently touch the top of the mixture. This is to prevent it over burning while it's baking in the oven. Then spray some water on the mixture surface. (Not too much)
  6. Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes until it puff up then turn the temperature to 170'C and bake for another 15 minutes.
  7. Transfer the puff on a wire rack to cool down.
  8. For the custard, boil the milk with sugar until sugar dissolve but not boiling. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks and flour a thick paste but no lumps. Add two tablespoon of milk if you find it too dry to mix.
  9. Pour the dissolve warm sugar milk into the egg yolks mixture, pour little by little and mix with a hand whisk until everything combine. Then, pour back the mixture into the cooking pan. Cook in very low heat and keep stirring until it thicken.
  10. Once the mixture thicken, remove from the heat and keep stirring until the heat slightly cool down but slightly warm. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract. Continue stirring until well combine.
  11. Transfer the custard into a plate and cover with cling film. Make sure the cling film touch on the mixture, this is to prevent it from skin forming on its surface.
  12. When the custard completely cool down, mix in the mashed pumpkins until well combine. Whip the cream until thicken and fold into the pumpkin custard.
  13. Transfer the pumpkin custard into a pipping bag and squeeze into the puffs.
  14. Dip the pumpkin cream puff with some melted chocolate and chill in the fridge until cool to serve.

This is something very fun which I think it helps relating people who has the same interest with. The rules for tagging is link to my blog (tagger) on your blog. Give seven facts about yourself then tag another seven bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and letting them know they were tagged and listing them (and their blogs) on your blog. Here is how I followed:

  • I bake madly in the kitchen. My hand feel itchy if I didn't touch my kitchen stuffs for some time.
  • I spend lots of time in research of baking from the internet, books or friends. I've not attended any baking classes or courses yet. But looking forward to attend one day.
  • I like to walk, I can walk many miles. But the land I'm living right now just too small and too hot for me to walk.
  • I hate packing but I've got to do it as I'm moving country to country with my other half.
  • I hardly understand myself until I've married because I wasted lots of time investing on my study then finally I realize what I really interested which was not relating to my study.
  • I afraid of leaving. Leaving someone is just like a world war.
  • Jesus is my best friend, only Him can give me the peace of mind.

7 bloggers that I'm passing on: