The Baking Bible: Perfect (Savory) Cream Puffs

Technically these, as the name implies, are supposed to be served with a savory filling. There's even a recipe for what I bet is a lovely "faux gras" made with chicken livers and whatnot. However I am not a fan of liver and I told Mark if he wanted to make the faux gras he was welcome to, and that it would be probably the best chicken liver pate he's ever had. He agreed, took a look at the recipe, and decided it was too much work. Ah well. So no savory cream puffs for us.

We did make the traditional sweet cream puff with vanilla ice cream and homemade hot fudge (the Chocolate Snowball Hot Fudge Sauce from Rose's Heavenly Bakes). Then we invited some friends over and we had a lovely snack in the backyard.

The only pâte à choux pastry I've made are gougeres which are cream puffs with cheese and they were simple and delicious. So I knew these would be fairly simple to make, too. There's a lot of slow cooling down that has to be done so there is a time factor, but otherwise making choux is pretty quick and simple. I made mine a bit bigger since we needed them to be able to hold about a tablespoon of ice cream each.

These were the most light and crisp choux pastry I have ever tasted and I am thrilled they were made by me! Everybody was very taken with them as well, and it was wonderful to catch up with some old friends.