One of my husbands favorite desserts are cream puffs so when special occasions like Valentine’s Day arise I like to spoil him with his favorite treats. Is one of those days you can indulge and enjoy and cream puffs are such a simple and yet elegant dessert idea.
Pate A Choux Recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 cupss water
- 8 ozs butter (unsalted)
- 1/4 oz salt
- 8 ozs of flour
- 7 or 8 eggs
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Place water, butter and salt into a saucepan. Bring to a boil then remove from the heat and add all of the sifted flour. Beat the dough vigorously with a spoon then put the pan back on the heat. Beat the dough for one minute until it comes away from the sides of the saucepan and no longer sticks to the spoon.
Transfer dough to a mixing bowl and add the eggs one at a time while beating the dough. The dough should be smooth and slightly loose.
Using a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch plain tip pipe the cream puffs.
Bake at 400 degrees for the first 20 minutes and then lower the heat to 350 degrees. Prop the oven open slightly with a towel to allow steam to escape from the cream puffs.
Bake until golden brown.
To create the swan you will also need to pipe the necks of the swans and bake them. Remember to allow the steam to escape form the oven while baking.
Chantilly Cream Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 cup heavy cream you want 40% fat or greater for this cream
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or Grand Marnier
Chill your mixing bowl in the freezer. Combine cream and vanilla in chilled bowl. Whisk until foamy and then add the sugar. Whisk until soft peaks.
Cut half of each puff and using a pastry bag with a large star tip, fill each shell with the cream.
Add the necks and cut the top half of the puff in half.
Top with powered sugar and serve with a raspberry sauce. You can easily make a raspberry sauce by crushing raspberries and adding sugar. Strain the seeds and you have a simple and elegant sauce. You can also cook the sauce if you like first then strain it.
Recipe by Chef Pierre Fauvet
Oh those are so cute! They look kindof hard to make….but I am going to give it a try! Carter would love that! How fun for the kids! Thanks for the great recipe…and love all your pictures to help! I will need them! LOL
I love how these turned out and they look SO good. Oh how I could go for one of these right now….or 2
I would really like to make these for my wife, she would love them! I’m a bit nervous, never made anything like this before. Although, the recipe seems pretty easy and straightforward. Maybe I’ll start with just a cream puff and then move onto the swan! Pinned it, Thanks.