Yummy Cream Puffs or Profiteroles

My children love cream puffs. So the other day I tried to make a batch. I made the choux pastry buns and filled them with whipped cream. If I had more time, I would've liked to make some chocolate sauce to drizzle over the cream puffs! Yum.. The children loved them as they were anyway.

The pastry for cream puffs is called choux pastry and it's unique because you have to cook the dough before baking. I found it quite easy and straight forward to make.

Here's the recipe I used, which I got from my mum's book, 'Home Baking Made Easy':

Ingredients:

65 g plain flour
2 medium-sized eggs
50 g butter
a pinch of salt
150ml water
a few drops vanilla extract

Method:

1. Sift flour onto a piece of grease-proof paper. Place eggs in a basin and whisk lightly together.

2. Place butter, salt and water in a saucepan over a moderate heat. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring.

3. Quickly draw the pan off the heat and tip in all the flour. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.

4. Return to pan to a low heat and beat vigorously for 1-2 minutes until the mixture forms a smooth ball.

5. Draw pan off heat; allow to cool for 2 minutes. Beat in eggs a little at a time until incorporated.

6. Beat in vanilla extract. Spoon teaspoonful of the mixture on to baking sheet which has been lightly greased and dusted with flour.

7. Bake at 200 degrees C for 15 minutes, then 190 degrees C for 10 minutes.

Hugh's baptism cake

This is the baptism cake I made for my nephew, little baby Hugh. I made the baby and the two cakes a few days before hand. I also had the soft fondant done and coloured, so I wouldn't take too long assembling it right before the baptism dinner.

The cakes were chocolate mud cake for the top tier and caramel mud cake for the bottom one. Mud cake is really heavy and moist, but I think I still prefer the fudgy brownie cake recipe. The truffle mixture for the filling between layers was too sweet. I think I'll stick to dark chocolate ganache next time or maybe try chocolate mousse. I still intend to explore and try different cake recipes until I find all the ones I like.

Anyway, I covered the cakes with blue soft fondant and stacked them. I put ribbons around the bottoms. I could've sworn I had solid white ribbons, but I only had this gauzy, silvery, white one. It turned out okay, but I think solid white would've looked great. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to rush out and buy some though.

I cut a crinkle circle of white fondant and made it into a doily by indenting the scallops and poking hole patterns with a bamboo skewer. I placed the baby on top and wrote 'God Bless Baby Hugh' with white fresh cream.

It looked great.. now I'm really hooked and counting down to the next birthday...