Chocolate Covered Vanilla Cream Puffs

Ingredients

Pastry Dough

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 Tablespoons butter, cut into large pieces
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup flour
• 4 large eggs (room temp)

Pastry Cream

• 2 cups whole milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3 1/2 Tbsp butter, cut into small squares

Directions

Pastry Dough

1. Preheat the oven to 425. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or a silpat.
2. Bring the milk, water, butter, sugar, and salt to a rapid boil. Add the flour, reduce heat to medium-low, and stir constantly. Use a big whisk, or you could also use a wooden spoon. The dough will come together in a ball, a crust may form on the bottom of the pan � just keep stirring for one to two minutes. This gives the dough the chance to dry out a bit.
3. Turn the dough into a large bowl (use a stand mixer if you have one, if not use a hand held mixer), let it cool for a minute, then add the eggs one by one. Beat and beat until the dough is thick and shiny.
4. Using about a tablespoon of dough for each cream puff, drop the dough from the spoon onto your baking sheet leaving about 2 inches between each ball.
5. (Once that�s done you can either bake immediate or freeze the dough balls for use later.)
6. If you want to bake, slide them into the 425F oven and immediately reduce temp to 375F. Bake for 24-30 minutes. They�re done when they�re golden, puffed, and firm.

Pastry Cream

1. Bring the milk to a boil. In a separate, larger saucepan, whisk together egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch. Whisking without stopping, slowly drizzle the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture.
2. Go very slowly at first (first 1/4 cup of hot milk) after that it�s OK to speed up a bit.
3. Keep on whisking, turn up the heat, and bring the mixture to a boil. Keep it at a boil � and crazy whisking � for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Whisk in vanilla. Let stand for 5 minutes, then whisk in the butter bits. Scoop into a bowl, cover in plastic, and let cool in the fridge. Your pastry cream is ready!

Assembly

1. Cut lids off the baked cream puff shells. They�ll be pretty much hollow inside. Scoop the pastry cream in to fill them puffs, then put the lids back on. Melt chocolate and then drizzle over the tops of the filled cream puffs � I did the drizzling with a small spoon. You�re done!