PASSIONATE RATIONS

From Misc Photos (2011)

(From prior posts, you know I’m embarking on a tour through James Peterson’s “Cooking” cookbook. This post relates to that adventure.)

Cream puffs, I hardly knew ye. Somewhere along the line I garnered the impression that you were difficult to make. How wrong I have been.

For some reason James Peterson decides to present a cheese puff recipe very early in his “Cooking” cookbook–basically a cream puff with added cheese. This is dough as I’ve never made it: boiling together flour, butter and water into a glossy paste (plus cheese and paprika–that’s the “cheese” part of the puff), then slowly adding seven (yes, seven) eggs. That’s it. So easy.

The hardest part of this recipe was getting the dough into something from which I could pipe it onto cooking sheets. Peterson only references a pastry bag with tip as the tool for this. Yes, I do have them, but was completely unable to locate them, so I took a gallon Ziploc bag, cut a small hole in one corner and used that, sans tip. It worked like a charm, and I think Peterson would do well to note such alternatives for the benefit of the average home kitchen. In fact, I suspect this worked better in some ways than a pastry bag with tip. There were a couple of tiny lumpy bits that got stuck in the hole. All I had to do was pinch them out. How would one do that with a hard tip? But, what do I know?

Other lessons learned:

–Too-warm kitchens make for too-moist dough. Try and keep the temp down (or use six, instead of the seven recommended, eggs and see if that gets you to a good consistency).

–The consistency of the dough at first is a little odd. When I piped my first batch onto the baking sheet, it flattened out and looked, well, not so tasty. “These will never puff,” I thought. But, happily, I was wrong.

–In fact, the initial consistency of the dough was such that I ended up putting the dough for my second batch in the fridge for a short period. It would have been helpful if Peterson addressed what, exactly, to do when your dough seems a little too runny (despite following the recipe to the tee). I’m not sure the fridge was it. While it assisted greatly with the ease of piping, my second batch, upon cooking, came out looking like tiny poori (oval-shaped, saucer-like puffs) instead of traditional more ball-shaped cream puffs. Nonetheless, they were still perfectly edible (though, after all this, I must confess I’ve never been much of a cream puff fan).

–I used both a non-stick baking sheet for the first batch, and a sheet lined with parchment paper for the second. The latter is the better option, by far. Non-stick is not non-stick when it comes to this dough. Or maybe it was just my particular pan. In any case, it’s parchment for me from now on, baby.

–Finally, remember the egg wash. With my first batch, I forgot it until they were already in the oven. They browned less well than my second batch. I also missed the opportunity to add cheese sprinkles on top. Never miss an opportunity to add more cheese.

–For me, the recipe made sixty-three (63) cream puffs. Sixty-three! “Serve immediately,” the book says. Eeek. It’s just me and my spouse. Which brings me to my last point–is there any way to store puffs so they are still usable for longer than “immediately”? Peterson doesn’t say (he should, don’t you think?). Guess that will have to be another experiment.