Cream puff with Pastry cream/Mocha cream
As Valentine's Day comes around the
corner, chocolate becomes the king of sweets. Many stores sells
chocolates in fancy
decorated box or cute heart shaped containers..with or without cute stuffed animals.
As a kid, I remember visiting grocery stores near our house every February for the special Valentine's Day, trying to find the best possible chocolate for my father and for a boy I liked.
In Japan, as I wrote in the previous entry titled "Loves in the Air!! Valentine's Day in Japan",Valentine's day is "the Confession" day for women if she was single.
Woman gives chocolate to a man she likes and tell him that she is in love with him.
If she has a boyfriend, then the day becomes the day to show him she loves him very much.
On the Valentine's day, men do not give anything to women,and he does not give answer "yes,I will go out with you" or "I am sorry.I don't feel the same way as you do" to her as well when single lady gave him a box of chocolate to him.
In Japan,there is a day called "White Day". It is the day man gives yes or no answer to a woman whom he got chocolate from. It is on exactly one month away:March 14th.
This tradition is actually still short history because it started in 1980's. But it is a day that guy who has received "Ho n me i chocolate" gives woman candy (marshmallow,cookies,and other kind of candies) and answer yes or no.
If men got "Gi ri Chocolate" then,it is a day to return the favor and nothing deep meaning in the candies the male workers give female workers.Simply meaning "Thank you for the Giri Chocolate".
When woman gives chocolates on Valentine's Day,sometimes, those chocolate comes with hand-knit sweater or muffler to man to confess her love to him. Hand-knitted stuff was very popular items to give with chocolate when I was a student. I saw girls knitting during the break for special someone.
These chocolates given to special someone in love are categorized as "Ho n me i chocolate".What it means is that it is a chocolate to confess love.
The chocolates given to other men such as father,male workmates, male boss are categorized as "Gi-ri chocolate". It is translated " Obligation Chocolate". It has no meaning of "I am in love with you" but it just became tradition in Japan.
Anyone can buy a box of chocolates, or take you to restaurant for special meal created by restaurants' chefs and, romantic dinner date is great.
However, if you make something for your loved ones, even if you make something simple, it has lots of feeling in there and becomes quite personal and has a lot more meaning to it.
I am sure you can put a huge smile on your loved one with something special made by you.
This year, I have made "Cream puff 3 ways; Cream puff filled with pastry cream ,Cream puff filled with Mocha cream and cream puff filled with both pastry cream and mocha cream" and it came out quite good, and I thought I would share the recipe with you.
My husband loved them so much that he was asking me if there is more left after finishing off his mini desert on the plate.
Cream puff seems intimidating at first glance, but it is not that hard to make. If you prefer, you can fill it with your favorite cream and it is quite versatile mini desert.
As you can tell, I made it a little earlier than actual Valentine's Day as usual so that I can post the recipe a little earlier for you to make ones for your loved one.
<Cream puff>
Cream puff is the mini French desert that is called "Choux a la creme" in French.
"Choux" means "cabbage" in French because cream puff dough gets puffed up in the oven resembled to a cabbage heads, but you can also pipe out the dough to shape like log as well if you were to make eclair.
The unsweetened pastry ball is often times filled with whipped cream,pastry cream and ice cream and garnished with chocolate sauce or powdered sugar.
In Japan, there was a store that sells delicious cream puff filled with milk cream, chocolate cream, whipping cream etc.. and our family used to buy some now and then, and store them in the freezer and we enjoyed frozen cream puff.
This year, I was inspired by my love of cream puff and my husband's love of coffee and made those into one pastry ball with a twist.
I think this is nice mini gourmet desert for party as well.
"Cream puff 3 ways"
Cream puff filled with pastry cream, Cream puff filled with Mocha cream, and cream puff filled with pastry cream and mocha cream..
Ingredients for pastry ball
1/2 C water
4 tbs butter
2 eggs
3/8C unbleached all purpose flour
Ingredients for pastry cream/mocha cream
2 1/4C milk
1 vanilla bean pod ( or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)
1/2C white sugar
4 egg yolks
1/2C unbleached all purpose flour
1.5 tbs corn starch
1 tbs coffee liqueur "Kahlua"
1 tbs espresso powder
Confectioner sugar for garnish
<Pastry ball>
0. Preheat the oven at 400F
1. To a sauce pan, add 1/2C water and 4 tbs of butter and let the butter melted and bring the mixture to boil
2. In the measuring cup, crack 2 eggs and beat the egg lightly
3. On a medium size bowl, place kitchen sieve and put 3/8C unbleached all purpose flour and shift through the sieve
4. Turn the heat down to simmer, and add shifted 3/8C unbleached all purpose flour into the sauce pan and stir them quickly,vigorously with wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the side of the pan
5. Cook the mixture a minute or so and keep stirring
6. Take the sauce pan off from the heat and add lightly beaten 2 eggs, half the amount at a time and mix well till dough is smooth texture
** Make sure that when you add last half of the beaten egg into flour-water-butter mixture, egg added previously is absorbed well and dough is smooth texture
7. Pipe out the pastry dough into 14 pastry balls onto non stick foil lined baking sheet
** Make sure to pipe out the dough 1.5"-2" apart so they would not stick together when puffed up in the oven
** Each piped out dough will be about 2" ball
Cream puff pastry ball piped out..
** If you do not have a piping bag,you can use freezer bag **
****** How to use freezer bag as piping bag ******
1. fold the top 3" or so down over your hand
2. put the pastry ball dough into freezer bag
** Don't fill the bag full.Always fill less than 80%.
**Since you are not going to be doing cake decoration,you do not need piping bag tip
3. Unfold the freezer bag top, position the bag so one side of the tip comes bottom and then hold the bag and twist the top so you can stuff the bottom of the tip
** Make sure there is no air in the bag
4. snip off the bottom tip with scissor
5. pipe out the dough
** When piping out the round dough onto the baking sheet, hold the tip 90 degree angle to the baking sheet and position the tip of the piping bag just above the pan and squeeze out the dough by gentle pressure to form the round shaped dough,then release the pressure from the bag before stop piping and push the tip down quickly move it up to end the dough shaping
** As you pipe out the dough, slide your hand forward so the dough gets pressed toward the tip of the bag
** If your dough had peak on top, wet your finger with water and smooth it down gently
*****************************************************
8. Bake 15 minutes at 400F, then, turn down the temperature to 350F and bake 16 minutes more or until pastry ball gets golden and firm to touch
** Do Not open the oven while pastry ball is baked. Once oven is opened, pastry ball can get sunk
Cream puff pastry ball baked..
9. When pastry ball gets nicely puffed,golden and firm to touch, turn off the oven and take it out from the oven and poke the bottom of the pastry ball with toothpick and put the pastry ball upside down on the baking sheet and put the pastry balls back into the oven for about 10 minutes to dry out more
10. After the 10 minutes is up, put the pastry ball upside down onto the cooling rack and cool it down to room temperature
<Mocha cream>
1. In the sauce pan, add 2 1/4C milk and 1 string of vanilla bean pod (If you use vanilla extract,add the extract after cream is cooled down) and let it come to luke-warm temperature on medium low heat
2. In the medium size ball, add 1/2C white sugar, 4 egg yolks and stir until the color gets pale white
3. On another bowl, place kitchen sieve and pour 1/2C unbleached all purpose flour and 1.5 tbs corn starch and shift it through
4. To the sugar-egg mixture, add shifted flour small amount at a time and stir gently
5. On the bowl that contains egg yolk-sugar-flour, place kitchen sieve and pour luke-warm milk-vanilla bean pod through small amount at a time and stir gently
** With vanilla bean pod, make a slit, and scrape off the vanilla beans with back of the knife and add the vanilla beans back to the milk mixture
** you can put the leftover vanilla bean pod that was dried into sugar container you have for coffee, you can have vanilla flavored sugar to use for coffee
** Or,you can use the leftover pod to make your homemade vanilla extract by using chopped 1 oz of vanilla bean pods with 1C 40% alcohol vodka in dark glass bottle with tight cap and shake it occasionally and let it age for 6 months and strain the vanilla pod.
6. Put the milk-flour-sugar-egg yolk-corn starch mixture back to the sauce pan and put it back on stove and stir constantly scraping off the bottom of the pan so it would not scorch on medium heat until pastry cream gets thickened up and start bubbling gently
7. Cook 1 minutes or so more and take it off from the heat and pour the cream onto container and cover the surface with plastic wrap so it would not form the skin on top of the cream
8. Let it cool down to room temperature
9. Once the cream gets cooled down, divide the pastry cream into 2 so you can have one container for pastry cream and the other to turn it into mocha cream
10. To a small container, add 1 tbs of coffee liqueur "Kahlua" and 1 tbs espresso powder and mix well
11. Add the mixture to half of the pastry cream, and mix well
12. Voila! Now you have made mocha cream
Pastry cream (left), Mocha cream (right)..
<How to assemble>
1. Cut the top 1/3 off from pastry ball
** Do not use the force to cut through or it gets crushed.
** Gently place the knife on top 1/3 area and move back and forth and let your knife guide through to cut off the top. Your hand is just supporting the knife not pushing the knife though
2. Fill the pastry ball with pastry cream for one, one for mocha cream,and the other fill with mocha cream and pastry cream
3. place them on the plate and put the top back and dust confectioner sugar over the cream puff to garnish the plate
** If you melt chocolate in double boiler and dip the pastry ball top and let it set, and fill the bottom with pastry cream,you can have eclair with cream puff shape.
Makes;14 cream puff with size of 2.5" - 3" round
Enjoy!
As a kid, I remember visiting grocery stores near our house every February for the special Valentine's Day, trying to find the best possible chocolate for my father and for a boy I liked.
In Japan, as I wrote in the previous entry titled "Loves in the Air!! Valentine's Day in Japan",Valentine's day is "the Confession" day for women if she was single.
Woman gives chocolate to a man she likes and tell him that she is in love with him.
If she has a boyfriend, then the day becomes the day to show him she loves him very much.
On the Valentine's day, men do not give anything to women,and he does not give answer "yes,I will go out with you" or "I am sorry.I don't feel the same way as you do" to her as well when single lady gave him a box of chocolate to him.
In Japan,there is a day called "White Day". It is the day man gives yes or no answer to a woman whom he got chocolate from. It is on exactly one month away:March 14th.
This tradition is actually still short history because it started in 1980's. But it is a day that guy who has received "Ho n me i chocolate" gives woman candy (marshmallow,cookies,and other kind of candies) and answer yes or no.
If men got "Gi ri Chocolate" then,it is a day to return the favor and nothing deep meaning in the candies the male workers give female workers.Simply meaning "Thank you for the Giri Chocolate".
When woman gives chocolates on Valentine's Day,sometimes, those chocolate comes with hand-knit sweater or muffler to man to confess her love to him. Hand-knitted stuff was very popular items to give with chocolate when I was a student. I saw girls knitting during the break for special someone.
These chocolates given to special someone in love are categorized as "Ho n me i chocolate".What it means is that it is a chocolate to confess love.
The chocolates given to other men such as father,male workmates, male boss are categorized as "Gi-ri chocolate". It is translated " Obligation Chocolate". It has no meaning of "I am in love with you" but it just became tradition in Japan.
Anyone can buy a box of chocolates, or take you to restaurant for special meal created by restaurants' chefs and, romantic dinner date is great.
However, if you make something for your loved ones, even if you make something simple, it has lots of feeling in there and becomes quite personal and has a lot more meaning to it.
I am sure you can put a huge smile on your loved one with something special made by you.
This year, I have made "Cream puff 3 ways; Cream puff filled with pastry cream ,Cream puff filled with Mocha cream and cream puff filled with both pastry cream and mocha cream" and it came out quite good, and I thought I would share the recipe with you.
My husband loved them so much that he was asking me if there is more left after finishing off his mini desert on the plate.
Cream puff seems intimidating at first glance, but it is not that hard to make. If you prefer, you can fill it with your favorite cream and it is quite versatile mini desert.
As you can tell, I made it a little earlier than actual Valentine's Day as usual so that I can post the recipe a little earlier for you to make ones for your loved one.
<Cream puff>
Cream puff is the mini French desert that is called "Choux a la creme" in French.
"Choux" means "cabbage" in French because cream puff dough gets puffed up in the oven resembled to a cabbage heads, but you can also pipe out the dough to shape like log as well if you were to make eclair.
The unsweetened pastry ball is often times filled with whipped cream,pastry cream and ice cream and garnished with chocolate sauce or powdered sugar.
In Japan, there was a store that sells delicious cream puff filled with milk cream, chocolate cream, whipping cream etc.. and our family used to buy some now and then, and store them in the freezer and we enjoyed frozen cream puff.
This year, I was inspired by my love of cream puff and my husband's love of coffee and made those into one pastry ball with a twist.
I think this is nice mini gourmet desert for party as well.
"Cream puff 3 ways"
Cream puff filled with pastry cream, Cream puff filled with Mocha cream, and cream puff filled with pastry cream and mocha cream..
Ingredients for pastry ball
1/2 C water
4 tbs butter
2 eggs
3/8C unbleached all purpose flour
Ingredients for pastry cream/mocha cream
2 1/4C milk
1 vanilla bean pod ( or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract)
1/2C white sugar
4 egg yolks
1/2C unbleached all purpose flour
1.5 tbs corn starch
1 tbs coffee liqueur "Kahlua"
1 tbs espresso powder
Confectioner sugar for garnish
<Pastry ball>
0. Preheat the oven at 400F
1. To a sauce pan, add 1/2C water and 4 tbs of butter and let the butter melted and bring the mixture to boil
2. In the measuring cup, crack 2 eggs and beat the egg lightly
3. On a medium size bowl, place kitchen sieve and put 3/8C unbleached all purpose flour and shift through the sieve
4. Turn the heat down to simmer, and add shifted 3/8C unbleached all purpose flour into the sauce pan and stir them quickly,vigorously with wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the side of the pan
5. Cook the mixture a minute or so and keep stirring
6. Take the sauce pan off from the heat and add lightly beaten 2 eggs, half the amount at a time and mix well till dough is smooth texture
** Make sure that when you add last half of the beaten egg into flour-water-butter mixture, egg added previously is absorbed well and dough is smooth texture
7. Pipe out the pastry dough into 14 pastry balls onto non stick foil lined baking sheet
** Make sure to pipe out the dough 1.5"-2" apart so they would not stick together when puffed up in the oven
** Each piped out dough will be about 2" ball
Cream puff pastry ball piped out..
** If you do not have a piping bag,you can use freezer bag **
****** How to use freezer bag as piping bag ******
1. fold the top 3" or so down over your hand
2. put the pastry ball dough into freezer bag
** Don't fill the bag full.Always fill less than 80%.
**Since you are not going to be doing cake decoration,you do not need piping bag tip
3. Unfold the freezer bag top, position the bag so one side of the tip comes bottom and then hold the bag and twist the top so you can stuff the bottom of the tip
** Make sure there is no air in the bag
4. snip off the bottom tip with scissor
5. pipe out the dough
** When piping out the round dough onto the baking sheet, hold the tip 90 degree angle to the baking sheet and position the tip of the piping bag just above the pan and squeeze out the dough by gentle pressure to form the round shaped dough,then release the pressure from the bag before stop piping and push the tip down quickly move it up to end the dough shaping
** As you pipe out the dough, slide your hand forward so the dough gets pressed toward the tip of the bag
** If your dough had peak on top, wet your finger with water and smooth it down gently
*****************************************************
8. Bake 15 minutes at 400F, then, turn down the temperature to 350F and bake 16 minutes more or until pastry ball gets golden and firm to touch
** Do Not open the oven while pastry ball is baked. Once oven is opened, pastry ball can get sunk
Cream puff pastry ball baked..
9. When pastry ball gets nicely puffed,golden and firm to touch, turn off the oven and take it out from the oven and poke the bottom of the pastry ball with toothpick and put the pastry ball upside down on the baking sheet and put the pastry balls back into the oven for about 10 minutes to dry out more
10. After the 10 minutes is up, put the pastry ball upside down onto the cooling rack and cool it down to room temperature
<Mocha cream>
1. In the sauce pan, add 2 1/4C milk and 1 string of vanilla bean pod (If you use vanilla extract,add the extract after cream is cooled down) and let it come to luke-warm temperature on medium low heat
2. In the medium size ball, add 1/2C white sugar, 4 egg yolks and stir until the color gets pale white
3. On another bowl, place kitchen sieve and pour 1/2C unbleached all purpose flour and 1.5 tbs corn starch and shift it through
4. To the sugar-egg mixture, add shifted flour small amount at a time and stir gently
5. On the bowl that contains egg yolk-sugar-flour, place kitchen sieve and pour luke-warm milk-vanilla bean pod through small amount at a time and stir gently
** With vanilla bean pod, make a slit, and scrape off the vanilla beans with back of the knife and add the vanilla beans back to the milk mixture
** you can put the leftover vanilla bean pod that was dried into sugar container you have for coffee, you can have vanilla flavored sugar to use for coffee
** Or,you can use the leftover pod to make your homemade vanilla extract by using chopped 1 oz of vanilla bean pods with 1C 40% alcohol vodka in dark glass bottle with tight cap and shake it occasionally and let it age for 6 months and strain the vanilla pod.
6. Put the milk-flour-sugar-egg yolk-corn starch mixture back to the sauce pan and put it back on stove and stir constantly scraping off the bottom of the pan so it would not scorch on medium heat until pastry cream gets thickened up and start bubbling gently
7. Cook 1 minutes or so more and take it off from the heat and pour the cream onto container and cover the surface with plastic wrap so it would not form the skin on top of the cream
8. Let it cool down to room temperature
9. Once the cream gets cooled down, divide the pastry cream into 2 so you can have one container for pastry cream and the other to turn it into mocha cream
10. To a small container, add 1 tbs of coffee liqueur "Kahlua" and 1 tbs espresso powder and mix well
11. Add the mixture to half of the pastry cream, and mix well
12. Voila! Now you have made mocha cream
Pastry cream (left), Mocha cream (right)..
<How to assemble>
1. Cut the top 1/3 off from pastry ball
** Do not use the force to cut through or it gets crushed.
** Gently place the knife on top 1/3 area and move back and forth and let your knife guide through to cut off the top. Your hand is just supporting the knife not pushing the knife though
2. Fill the pastry ball with pastry cream for one, one for mocha cream,and the other fill with mocha cream and pastry cream
3. place them on the plate and put the top back and dust confectioner sugar over the cream puff to garnish the plate
** If you melt chocolate in double boiler and dip the pastry ball top and let it set, and fill the bottom with pastry cream,you can have eclair with cream puff shape.
Makes;14 cream puff with size of 2.5" - 3" round
Enjoy!
Posted by yassy at 2/12/2012 12:06 PM 
Categories: Miscellaneous (cooking)
Tags: food cream puff mocha cream pastry cream
Categories: Miscellaneous (cooking)
Tags: food cream puff mocha cream pastry cream
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