How Not to Make Chocolate Cream Puffs

My dear friend Apryl is getting married in September. The bridal shower was this past Sunday, and of course I jumped at the chance to make some special food for my special friend. Being in charge of the dessert spread, I got the cake, made some fruit-topped sugar cookies and attempted chocolate cream puffs.

Seriously, leave it to me to try a new recipe when 50 people need to be fed. As is my wont, I went at the choux pastry and cream filling as though I had made them a thousand times before. I found three different cream puff recipes and took what I liked from each of them. I found two different pastry cream recipes and did the same.

And you know what? The little buggers puffed up just right, and the pastry cream was silky and divine. Sure, the choux shells were a little wonky and misshapen, but hey, it was my first attempt. I thought that the glossy icing I had planned - picture a chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme - would give them a professionally-finished look.

The morning of the shower, with my hair still wet and just 45 minutes until I needed to hit the road, I went for the glaze. Bittman's recipe couldn't have been easier: a cup of milk and a cup of high-quality chocolate chips, melted and mixed, then drizzled. Unfortunately, even made with whole milk, this yielded a meager chocolate soup.

I tried again. I put the soup back in the sauce pan, added even more chocolate chips and tossed in few tablespoons of butter in an attempt to up the heftiness quotient. My machinations improved the consistency up to the level of Hershey's syrup.

I now had 30 minutes in which to dry the hair, put on the make-up, get dressed, and finish up the infernal cream puffs. I looked at their delicious-but-deformed little bodies and stirred the chocolate mess, and made my decision: we'll ice them anyway.

I drizzled the soup-sauce-syrup disaster over them, and it streamed down the sides into puddles - nay, lakes - of chocolate mud. I did my best to refrigerate, hoping the cold would harden the mess into something resembling ganache. No dice. I slapped on the plastic wrap, dashed through the downpour to my car, and put on my best bridesmaid face.

Good friend that she is, Apryl oohed and aahed over the little bastards, and I will admit that they tasted great. But they were sticky to touch and not pretty at all, and I hate that. Next time I will use a pastry bag to pipe the cream puffs, so that they might not need glaze to be cute. As a service to you, I have omitted the chocolate soup step from the recipe below - although it would make a mean ice cream topping.

Chocolate Cream Puffs
Adapted from Bittman, epicurious and beyond.

For the choux pastry:
1 cup water
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon high-quality cocoa powder
1 cup flour
4 eggs

For the chocolate pastry cream:
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons high-quality cocoa powder
Pinch salt
2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
2 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
3 ounces high-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Over medium-high heat, combine water, butter and salt until butter melts. Add the cocoa powder and flour all at once. Cook, stirring constantly, until the dough holds together in a ball, five minutes or less.

Remove the pan from the heat. Using an electric mixer, beat in the eggs one at a time. Stop beating when the egg is fully incorporated and the mixture is smooth and shiny.

Use a pastry bag to pipe 1-1/2 inch balls of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. (You can use two spoons to form your dough balls if you don't mind wonky-shaped puffs.) Bake for 40 minutes or until the puffs sound hollow when tapped. Prick each puff with a toothpick to allow steam to escape, then cool completely (which doesn't take long).

While the puffs are in the oven, make the pastry cream. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium sauce pan. In a bowl, mix the eggs, yolk and milk until well combined. Over medium heat, add the egg-milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Whisk for the first minute or two to break any lumps, then stir constantly until the mixture thickens considerably - you should be able to leave trails in it with your spoon. This takes about 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter and chocolate, stirring until everything has melted and combined. Cool the pastry cream in the fridge if necessary, putting plastic wrap right on its surface to prevent a skin from forming.

Once the choux puffs have cooled completely, use a knife to remove a little cap from each. Hollow out the insides if necessary, then fill with pastry cream and replace the cap. Serve as soon as possible or they will get mushy.