Pastry Blasphemy

I do not like whipped cream.  I realize as a pastry professional, it is a little strange to admit this.  It's not the taste I object to, it's something about the whipped, airy consistency, and I don't really know where this dislike came from.  Since I was a little kid, whenever I ordered a shake, or hot chocolate, it would inevitably arrive with a disappointing mound of the stuff.  Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have my big sister by my side, who bravely removed it with her spoon.  I mean, I would never use my own spoon, that's just gross.  Just thinking about it gives me the chills.  

A few years ago, I started working at Spruce, where I had to make whipped cream almost every day.  Faced with whipping it together so frequently, I survived the task by slowly transitioning my pure disgust into a professional respect.  I was reminded that whipped cream is incredibly useful.  It's easy and quick to make, and it can accompany just about anything.  Don't get me wrong, I still don't eat it plain, but I've come to realize that it deserves its place on the dessert plate, and in the pastry chef's arsenal.

Whipped cream is pretty easy to throw together by taste, but at Spruce, our formula was 10:1, cream to sugar, by weight.  If you are feeling fancy you can add vanilla extract.  This formula translates to the volumetric recipe below:

Start with cold cream and it will whip faster

Clearly, I won't stop here with just a bowl of plain whipped cream.  Please, I need to eat something.  So, what can accompany this ubiquitous, fluffy and flexible substance?  Pâte à Choux!

Pâte à choux (paht-a-shoo) is a frequent partner-in-crime of whipped cream, and their chemistry together is undeniable.  Don't be fooled by the French, because it's truly a strange translation: Cabbage Pastry.  Fortunately it has to do with the shape and appearance after baking, and NOT the flavor or color of cabbage. 

I guess it looks like cabbage...?

Pâte à choux, choux pastry, or choux paste, is a soft dough that is best known for its role in cream puffs, eclairs, and profiteroles.  It's a dough that is fundamentally different from most french pastry.  Unlike puff pastry, and croissant dough, it is cooked on the stove and piped into its final shape.  It doesn't take hours of resting, rolling and folding, as it comes together in less than 15 minutes.  Pâte à choux creates a wonderfully light and crisp vessel.  It readily cradles the whipped cream, and supports any friendly stowaways, like chocolate ganache and fresh fruit.

Original Recipe: Pâte à choux from Martha Stewart.com.  The yield on the website says 30 cream puffs, I got around 48.  Bonus!

Ingredients:

1 c water

1 t sugar

1/2 t salt

1 stick butter, 4oz

1 1/4 c AP flour (165g)

4 eggs + 1 white

Method:

1. Place water, sugar, salt, and butter in a small pot.  Bring to a boil.

2. Take off heat, add flour all at once, and stir aggressively with a wooden spoon, until smooth.  It will look like mashed potatoes.

3. Put the pot back on medium heat, and cook the dough while continuously stirring.  After a few minutes, you'll notice the dough drying out a little, and a film will develop on the bottom of the pot.  Take off the heat, place the dough in a mixing bowl and use the low speed on a mixer to cool for 1-2 minutes.  

4. Once the dough is no longer piping hot, gradually add the eggs, one at time.  Wait until each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next, and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed with a spatula.  After the last egg white is added, make sure the entire mixture is homogenous by scraping the bottom of the bowl and mixing for 1 more minute.

  

5. Shape the dough by placing it in a piping bag, and piping out cream puff and eclair shapes on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  You can also use a scoop.  

Use a little dough to glue the parchment paper down

No matter if you pipe or scoop, be sure to press down any "tails" using your finger moistened with water.
These little tails can burn if left on your piped shapes.

For eclairs, pipe long tubes of dough.

6. Bake in a 375 F degree oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.  Then to ensure a crisp shell, turn off the oven and prop the door open, so the shells can dry out even further without overbaking.  Now you can use them immediately, or place them in a airtight container, or freeze them.  Re-toast in the oven, as needed.

Now that we have our shells, the sky is the limit.  For eclairs, we could pipe them full of pastry cream and glaze it with chocolate ganache.  For profiteroles, we could slice them in half and put a small scoop of ice cream inside.  However, this time I was inspired by a recipe from Martha Stewart to treat them like strawberry shortcakes and use our whipped cream.  I don't have strawberries so, enter the Mini Banana Eclairs!

yum.

Method:

1) Slice choux puff in half with serrated knife.

2) Fill the bottom half with vanilla whipped cream.

3) Top cream with banana slices.

4) Dunk top half in warm ganache (equal parts chopped chocolate and hot cream).

5) Sandwich it all together and eat!

The Result:  A mini, fluffy, creamy banana chocolate sandwich.  It reminds me of a lighter version of banana cream pie, with the chocolate lending a welcome bitterness.  This would be a good addition to a dessert buffet, no utensils required!  

You can use small round puffs too

Verdict: I have eaten two of these already, and I am strongly contemplating a third fourth.  Make these little guys the next time you need something painfully cute in a rush.  Keep in mind that after sitting with the cream, the pâte à choux will lose its crispiness.  If you want to let them sit out, AND still have some crunchy texture, sprinkle some chopped toasted hazelnuts or peanuts on top of the cream.

Ok, so I'm probably never going to eat whipped cream straight out of the bowl, but I think I can handle these little treats all by myself.  Can you?

A Classic

Few things in this world make my husband as content as the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  I'm certain this appreciation stems from his father's fervent devotion to daily cookie consumption over most of his life.  My mother-in-law's kitchen has the output of a commercial bakery, and even my brother-in-law and sister-in-law have been roped in as substitute bakers to keep up with demand.  

This classic treat is easy to eat, easy to make, and although we've covered some recipes on this blog that require a little adventure, sometimes a chocolate chip cookie is all you need.  

Sean's Review: "Damn tasty."  Good enough for me.

"Damn Tasty" Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Adapted from the Original Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:

Yield: About 40 3-inch cookies

My Tweaks: I increase the brown sugar to white sugar ratio, and substitute chopped chocolate for chocolate morsels.  You'll find my rationale with the pictures below.  

1 c butter (225g)

1 c brown sugar (200g)

1/2 c white sugar (100g)

2 eggs (100g)

1 t vanilla

2 1/4 c AP Flour (290g)

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

1 1/2 - 2 c dark chocolate, chopped (160 - 210g)

Method:

1) Cream butter and sugars

2) Add eggs, one at time, then add vanilla.  Mix until homogenous.  

3) Add dry ingredients all at once.  Mix until almost all of the flour is incorporated.

4) Fold in chopped chocolate

5) Scoop dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan

6) Bake at 375F for about 10 minutes.  Rotate after 5 minutes.

7) Leave on the sheet pan to cool

I use a #50 scoop, but spoons and fingers work too

Notes: To achieve a softer cookie from the original, I tweak the brown to white sugar ratio from 1:1 (3/4 cup of each) to 2:1 (1 cup of brown sugar and a 1/2 cup of white sugar).  Brown sugar has a caramel taste, and is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water.  This makes for a more complex flavor and a softer texture.  It also makes for a darker color cookie, which may make it difficult to tell if they are done.  So even if they appear golden brown, make sure that the edges are slightly darker than the center.  If you take them out of the oven too soon, they may fall apart even after cooling.  

I add less chocolate than most people, so I use the lower bound
listed in the recipe, but by all means, go crazy.

As for the chopped chocolate, I almost never have chocolate morsels on hand, so I use a knife to roughly chop up a bar of dark bittersweet chocolate.  I think it's more enjoyable to bite into a cookie with various chocolate chip sizes.  Plus, a few chocolate morsel brands for sale have additives to keep them in their cute, little shape.  I don't know about you, but I like the way regular chocolate softens in a cookie after it's baked.  Plus, the morsel additives interfere in other recipes (e.g., ganache, icing) so I like to use a more multi-purpose bulk chocolate (Trader Joe's has a great one "Pound Plus 72% Dark Chocolate" from Belgium).

The Result:  A soft cookie, with a lightly crispy edge.  I like the bitterness of the dark chocolate, but you may want to go for a more traditional, semi-sweet chocolate (55-65%).  You could even develop a personal combination of milk, semisweet and bittersweet chocolate pieces.  Also, be aware that the darker color cookie might throw you off at first, but it is definitely worth it.  

The Verdict:  I cannot be left alone with three dozen of these cookies.  I hope Sean and his brother show up soon, or this is going to get really ugly, really fast.

With every "new" chocolate chip cookie recipe, no one is truly reinventing the wheel.  The specific ingredients, the amounts, and the methods are quite similar across recipes, which is expected for something so ubiquitous.  My personal approach outlined here, is similar to ones I've seen on Martha Stewart, Cook's Illustrated and Food Network.  I encourage you to play around with the different chocolate types, and sugar ratios, to find your perfect cookie.  

Then just make sure to enlist all of your family members to make them for you, every day, and you'll be all set!  Now that's the life.