The 46th recipe I made with the Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Dorie group is Cream Puffs with Crackle and Cream and can be found in the Baking with Dorie cookbook on page 217.
Ingredients: flour, brown sugar, butter, salt, vanilla, milk, water, sugar, eggs, and heavy cream.
The group is celebrating birthday months within the membership and this month finds Mardi having a birthday, it's always great to celebrate Mardi as she makes all the recipes all the time always on time, I aspire. My cookbooks are filled with notes from all the bakers who have wonderful insights on how to do things, how to enhance a photo, and most of all for me these days, how to make mini versions of the original recipe so our smaller household now can still enjoy baking along but can easily hand off extras. Mardi is Queen of Minifying Bakes, my books are filled with Mardi Tips. Thank you, Mardi, and best of wishes for your birthday month, we are so fortunate to have you baking along and inspiring us with your posts.
When I looked at this recipe, and I have made Cream Puffs before, it seemed a little daunting…lots of steps, none of them difficult or time-consuming, but still…I kept putting it off until I realized yesterday that I could NOT be late with Mardi’s Birthday Pick. After lining everything up, following each step, and focusing on the end, it all went together smoothly and my Cream Puffs were large and puffy, just like the ones in the book. Success! There were various options for filling them…this is a whipped cream household as it is Mark’s favorite, he comes by it from his father who was also a huge whipped cream fan. The photo is a modest cream puff with whipped cream…I will leave to your imagination what Mark’s looked like…I know there was a cream puff in there somewhere. The flavor is tasty, the crackle on the top makes it all a bit crunchy which is very nice, love “crunchy” in a dessert. Definitely can be a repeat, there are many ways to change the fillings, add a drizzle, and celebrate most anything.
If you would like to join in, just make it, bake it, and leave a link to your post at the Tuesdays with Dorie website: click here. At the website you will find the postings for the current recipe, the list of recipes chosen each month, and some baking chit chat that is definitely helpful as well as fun. We don’t publish Dorie's recipes here, but you can buy the book and have them ALL at your fingertips.