Pumpkin Spice Cream Puffs

A lot easier than you would think

So today I want to make some cream puffs, and specifically, because it’s fall I wanna make some pumpkin spice cream puffs. I do have to say though the recipe is pretty general, and can be filled with whatever your heart desires.  Cream puffs are one of those things that seem super complicated to make but they are actually very easy, so let’s start.

Making the pastry dough

The first thing we are going to need to do is to melt eight tablespoons, one stick, or 115 grams of butter in 1 cup of water. Some recipes call for using either 1 cup of milk or a mixture of milk and water, adding milk will give you a softer cream puff that will end up darker. I actually was out of milk so I am using pure water here, which is completely cool. Ideally, you will want to use a large saucepan for this, but I wanted to make sure it was easy to see for filming, so I am using this. We also want to add 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar to the water butter mixture.

Once the butter has melted in the water, bring this up to a light boil and 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Ideally, you want to be using a wooden spoon or something else that is a little sturdy and begin mixing while maintaining medium heat. Make sure to mix this up so there isn’t any dry flour in the mixture and cook this over medium heat for about 3 minutes. You should see a slight film form on the bottom. We are heating up the starch and cooking the flour here, if you stop too early, the cream puff will not have a solid structure, and will also not taste so great.

After about 3 minutes of stirring and mixing, it’s time to take the dough off of the heat and place it in a bowl. We want this mixture to cool down so we can add some eggs. If we added eggs now they would scramble and it would be a disaster, so let’s let it cool down for at least 10 minutes. At which point it is time to add the aforementioned eggs. 

One at a time, we are going to add in 4 eggs. After you add the first egg, begin mixing and keep mixing until it comes together. It will seem like you messed up and the egg won’t mix well, but keep working the dough until the egg disappears. It will definitely take about 30 seconds per egg. Once you get the first egg in, it’s time to repeat this same process 3 more times until all of the eggs are in. 

At this point, we have made a Pâte à choux! This dough can also be used to make eclairs, but let’s make some cream puffs.

Making the puffs

Ok, to get a good cream puff shape, we want to use a piping bag. Scoop the pastry dough into a piping bag with a large opening and begin squeezing the stuff out. You want to apply even pressure, and really try to keep the tip deep into the puff. This will create a nice little puff blob, repeat this process several times, till you have a tray filled with puffs. We do want to make sure they are spaced far enough away from each other so there isn’t puff interference during baking. Also, we want to tamp down any peaks sticking up with a wet finger so they don’t burn.

Next, we are going to want to make an egg wash of one egg and 2 tablespoons of water, brush the egg wash over the puffs.  Once the tray is ready, place the tray into an oven that was preheated to 450F or 230C, so quite hot. Once the puffs are in and the oven has a second to get back up to temperature, turn the oven off and let em sit for 10 minutes. At which point turn the temperature to 350 and let them bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown and puffy as can be. 

We wanna pull these puppies out and let em cool

Filling the cream puffs

In the meantime let’s make our filling. So for the filling, I am using a whipped cream base. I am going to add some maple syrup to sweeten this a little and just whip this up. 

So I want to flavor this whipped cream with a pumpkin spice flavor. Ideally, I would want to use some canned pumpkin and add my own pumpkin spices, but this is unfortunately 2020 and therefore the universe seems to only have pumpkin pie filling with their own preadded spices. 

I am going to add 1 cup of my pumpkin pie filling, to which I am adding ⅓ cup of evaporated milk for that old school flavor, as well as making this a little more liquidy.

Mix the whipped cream and pumpkin pie mixture, and boom, we got our filling.

Now after the puffs have cooled it’s time to fill them. I tried to be cool and fill them using a syringe-like attachment to the piping bag, but they would overflow out of unknown holes causing nothing but a mess. I don’t have that technique down, so I am going for the semi-cheater method of cutting these bad boys out and adding the filling to the cavernous interior of the cream puff.

Fill these guys up, and that’s it, you have successfully made some cream puffs!

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Condensed Recipe:

Ingredients:

Pastry Dough:

• 1 cup [250 mL] water

• 8 Tablespoons butter [115 grams] unsalted butter

• 1 cup [120 grams] all-purpose flour

• 2 tablespoons [25 grams] granulated sugar

• 1 tsp [6 grams] salt

• 4 eggs

Filling:

• 1 cup [250 mL] heavy whipping cream

• 1 tablespoon [20 grams] maple syrup

• 1/3 cup evaporated milk

• 1 cup canned pumpkin

• Pumpkin pie spices:

  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

  • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger

  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

Instructions:

1. Melt Butter in water, add sugar and salt, bring to a light boil.

2. Add cup of flour, mix and cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.

3. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.

4. Add 1 egg and mix until completely mixed in (about 30 seconds), repeat for 3 more eggs.

5. Place pastry dough into a piping bag and pipe out puffs on a silicone baking tray.

6. Brush on an egg wash (1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water mixed with a fork), and place into a preheated 450F (230C) oven. Turn off the oven and allow them to sit for 10 minutes, then turn the oven to 350F (176C) and bake for 10 minutes.

7. Pull out of oven and allow to cool.

8. Mix filling ingredients and pipe into cooled puffs.

   Enjoy!