Cream Puffs

Cream puffs have always been high on my favorite desserts list.  What's not to like, right?  Delicious pastry filled with some sort of creamy center and occasionally dunked in chocolate.

I never had the guts to attempt them at home though.....the thought of making the dough, something called Pate a Choux just seemed to be slightly too daunting to me.  Until my dear friend Jackie stayed with us for a few days.  As one of my few friends who actually enjoys baking, she decided that the two of us together could tackle this recipe.  After going through my millions of cookbooks (and looking at Julia Child, Martha Stewart, etc), we decided on Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Profiteroles recipe.

Well, I'm happy to report that these are actually not that hard at all!  Just be sure that you read through the instructions thoroughly so that you had an idea of what you're doing, since this process is quite different from most things you'll make.  And once you get the dough together, it's time to put your piping skills to work.  We used the Pate a Choux dough to make cream puffs.....but you could just as easily bust out some eclairs (which I think I'll do next time around).  I think our were in the oven a minute or two too long.....I would rather seem them less browned on top.  However, once we filled these with whipped cream.....they disappeared awfully fast!  The Barefoot Contessa recipe actually slices these bad boys in half and puts a scoop of ice cream in there.  Or you could make some pastry cream to fill them.  So many choices!

The hubby's only comment was that he would have loved the tops dipped in chocolate.  Next time!  Check out the Food Network site for Barefoot Contessa's recipe....and Enjoy!

Thanks for the photo bomb sweetie!