C
ream puff is one of the most known desserts ever. It is a ball of baked choux pastry, cut and filled with Chantilly cream or crème pâtissière. These little sweet snacks are not difficult to make, especially if you already know how to make perfect pâte à choux. However, that won’t be enough for today’s recipe. Today, we are making craquelin! Craquelin means cracker in French, so choux craquelin would be crackly choux. The way to get crunchy choux is to make craquelin topping – a mixture of butter, brown sugar, and flour. It is necessary to roll it thinly and put a piece of the mixture on each cream puff just before baking them.
Craquelin gives texture, nice appearance, and sweetness to your cream puffs, so no wonder it is getting more popular in the world of choux lovers. I like to put it on the éclairs, too! One more interesting thing, you can put some food coloring into your craquelin and make colored cream puffs! Now isn’t that great idea for children’s birthday parties?
Choux à la Crème Craquelin Recipe
by:Tereza Alabanda,The Pastry Maestra
PRINT PDF (EN) ISPIŠI PDF (HR)Prep. time : 60 minutes
Cook time : 30 minutes
Ready in 90 minutes
Level : Advanced
Craquelin:- Butter 85g (3oz)
- Light brown sugar 100g (3.5oz)
- All purpose flour 100g (3.5oz)
- Salt a pinch
- Water 125g (4.4oz)
- Milk 125g (4.4oz)
- Butter 100g (3.5oz)
- Salt 5g (1Tsp)
- Sugar 10g (1Tbsp)
- All purpose flour 150g (5.3oz)
- Eggs app. 250g (8.8oz)
- Milk 500g (2cups)
- Egg yolks 100g (3.5oz)
- Sugar 125g (4.4oz)
- All purpose flour 25g (0.9oz)
- Corn starch 25g (0.9oz)
- Vanilla powder
- Butter 250g (8.8oz)
- To make craquelin cream softened butter and sugar. Add flour and salt to the mixture, and mix to combine. Roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper to 2mm (1⁄16 of an inch) thickness and freeze it like that until needed.
- Make pâte à choux. Put milk, water, butter, salt and sugar into a saucepan, and cook until it boils. Remove the pan from the stove and add the flour. Put the pan back on the stove and cook, stirring constantly for about 2 minutes. Transfer the mixture into a clean bowl and leave it to cool. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, and add them gradually to the paste mixing well after each addition. The finished dough should be soft, smooth and creamy.
- Pipe small balls, approximately 3-4 cm (about 1.5 inches) in diameter with 10mm (3⁄8 of an inch) piping tip.
- Take craquelin out of the freezer and cut out circles same size as the diameter of your choux balls. Place craquelin circle on the each choux bun.
- Bake the puffs at 180°C (350°F) until golden brown (app. 20-25 minutes). Take them out and leave them to cool down.
- While the cream puffs are baking, make crème mousseline. Mix the milk, half of sugar and vanilla powder in a large saucepan and put it on the stove. Blanch egg yolks with the rest of the sugar, add sifted flour and cornstarch and whisk to combine. Temper the yolk mixture with approximately half of the heated milk. Return the yolk mixture to the saucepan, put it back on the stove and cook stirring vigorously until the cream boils and thickens. Allow pastry cream to boil for another 2 minutes stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the stove and immediately pour the cream into a clean bowl. Cover it by sticking plastic wrap on the surface of the cream and leave it to cool down. Work the cooled cream with a whisk until smooth, and gradually add softened butter.
- Cut cooled choux in two parts and fill the bottom part with crème mousseline generously. Cover it with the top part and dust cream puffs with powdered sugar.
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