Tonight was a night of experimentation! I tried my hand at making pastry cream for the first time and tried a new recipe for pâte à choux (cream puff pastry), both from King Arthur Flour's Baker's Companion. It is an awesome cookbook and reference! Not to mention that King Arthur makes the best flours.
I started by making the pastry cream, which is very much like making a homemade pudding. It was very easy though! I followed the recipe from The Baker's Companion, but added my own twist. I mashed one very ripe banana and mixed it into some of the pastry cream before adding the whipped cream. Wow! It was delicious. It didn't cross the line into tasting like fake banana candy. I saved some vanilla pastry cream for filling for regular cream puffs.
Next I made the pâte à choux, which is a pastry leavened by steam as opposed to a chemical like baking powder. They are a great blank slate for many fillings like a pastry cream to make an éclair, ice cream to make profiteroles or savory fillings like ham or chicken salad.Once I get proper piping tips and bags I will be making monster éclairs. Yummy!
To finish everything off, I piped the banana pastry cream into the cream puffs and dipped the tops into melted chocolate-hazelnut spread, aka Nutella. Amazing combination! The others I piped with vanilla pastry cream and will top with powdered sugar.
I have nicknamed the banana-nutella cream puffs the Italian Elvis because instead of peanut butter, I used Italy's gift of Nutella. Either way, it was a great night in the kitchen! It is great feeling creative again.
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