Hey! I said No!

When you watch shows like “The Great British Baking Shows” they do amazing recipes that look so hard!!! I’ve always wanted to try to make things like puff pastry, pie crust, and choux pastry. Doing this blog is giving me the abilities to do that!! I had so much fun making this recipe, it really made me feel like I accomplished something.

Here’s what you need:

For the Cream Puffs:
1 cup of water
8 tbs unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
2 tsp sugar
1/6 tsp salt
4 large eggs

For the Filling:
8 oz of cream cheese, room temp
8 tbs unsalted butter, room temp
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup of pumpkin puree
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
4 oz cool whip, thawed
powdered sugar, for dusting

First, melt the butter into the water until it comes to a soft boil.

While you’re waiting on the water and butter to boil, sift your flour.

Then add the sugar and salt.

Here’s the fun part, you want to combine the water/butter mixture with the flour/sugar/salt mixture and use a spatula to mix it until it’s smooth. You want to do it fast, the flour will make pockets of dry flour in the wet mixture if you’re not thorough.

Grab your mixer and start mixing, adding the eggs one egg at a time. Make sure that the previous egg is combined before you add the next one. Again, you want a smooth mixture.

It’s super sticky, so make sure you’re scraping the sides as you mix.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. I had to use two baking sheets, just a heads up.

Fill a pipping bag with your mixture. I couldn’t find my pipping bags so I just used a sandwich bag. I probably should have used a bigger bag, but oh well.

Pipe the batter in a circle, a little bigger than a tablespoon. Clearly, my pipping skills are lacking. But it’s ok, the cream puffs are going to taste amazing no matter how wierd they look. You’ll want to wet your finger and push the tops down to make it as flat as possible. Again, it’s ok if it doesn’t look good, they’ll taste amazing.

Place your baking sheets in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, THEN (this is super important), drop the temperature to 365 degrees for 20 minutes.

See they’re beautiful… just not uniform. Let them cool.

While the choux is baking, you want to make your filling. I made my filling too late and the filling was really squishy, which still tasted phenomenal, but you do what. your filling to hold up. Start by creaming the cream cheese.

Sorry for the crappy picture, I was trying to mix and take a picture at the same time. You then want to add your butter, powdered sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and pumpkin puree and mix until smooth.

Then fold in your cool whip. My cool whip was still slightly frozen so I ended up mixing it into the filling instead. It still turned out good, but it would be fluffier if you folded it in. Let it chill in the refrigerator until your choux is out and cooled completely.

Cut your choux in half (or if you have pipping tips and bags, you can fill it from the bottom).

Pip, or plop, the filling in the middle. Then cover the filling with the top. You can also sift some powdered sugar on top. I didn’t, I don’t know why, but they were still amazing.

And there you have it!! My dad, who doesn’t like pumpkin or weird foods, LOVED them and told me that they were bakery quality. Probably some of the highest praise I could ask for. I’m very proud of myself and upset that I ate so many!!!

I hope you guys take the time to make this recipe. Don’t let the choux pastry intimidate you, it was really easy to do and you can most definitely do it!! The greatest thing about this recipe is you can experiment with the flavors of the cream and you can even experiment with topping your choux, like dipping it in chocolate.

Let me know if you’ve tried this recipe and what you think!!

With Light and Love,

Lissie