Strawberry Cream Puffs

“All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.” – Lord Byron

Yes, this recipe is sheer happiness on a plate!…and I soooo want to share it with all of you!

I adored cream puffs as a child, the melt in the mouth Choux pastry, the vanilla flavoured whipped cream( n oodles of it) and last but not the least, the icing sugar to be licked off ones fingers! But unlike Wordsworth, I’m not content with just “emotions recollected in tranquility”, I have recreated my recipe of happiness with the addition of strawberries.

Don’t let the Choux pastry scare you away from this heavenly dessert, infact I find it to be the easiest of all pastry doughs to handle and the most versatile too. One can do so much with it from making eclairs and cream puffs to savoury cheese snack to frying the dough for churros.

The pastry in these strawberry cream puffs is as light as a cloud. The sweet n sour strawberries contrast beautifully with vanilla flavoured cream. You can experiment with the filling – a mixture of berries or grapes or mangoes or really anything you fancy would do. At times I replace whipped cream with ice cream, cream cheese or even chilled vanilla custard.

For Choux Pastry:

1 cup water
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs
1/4 cup powdered sugar for sprinkling

For Strawberry Filling:
1 cup whipping cream
12-14 strawberries, sliced
A drop vanilla essence or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons powdered sugar

This Is What You Do:

Heat oven to 200 degrees C.

Heat water and butter to a rolling boil in a medium saucepan.

Stir in flour; reduce heat. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat.

Beat in eggs,one at a time. Continue beating until smooth.

Drop dough about 1/4 cupfuls, 3 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Cool and cut off 1/3 of top of each puff.

For the filling, take 1 cup whipping cream, 2 tablespoons of ground sugar, add a drop of vanilla essence or 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and whip them together with an electric beater.

1 cup of heavy cream will give 1+1/2 cup of whipped cream because the volume will increase after whipping.

Slice the strawberries and add 1 tablespoon of icing sugar to them. Fill puffs with 1 generous tablespoon of whipped cream and a layer of sliced strawberries.

Dust with powdered sugar. Refrigerate until serving time. Serve chilled.

Makes 10 cream puffs.