These delicate, crispy, mildly sweet cream puffs from Persian Mama are the perfect small dessert. The first time I made them they turned out as large as popovers, and I learned the Farsi phrase “enough cream to choke a day worker.” Manual laborers can consume lots of tasty treats without consequence, but since I work at a desk, I now heed Homa’s advice and keep them small (about 14 2-inch circles.)
PrintNoon e Khamei: Cream Puffs
Ingredients
Pastry:
1 cup water
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
⅛ tsp salt
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
4 large eggs (room temperature)
Filling:
2¼ cups heavy cream
5 tbsp granulated sugar, or more to taste
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rosewater
Powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Add 1 cup water, 6 tbsp unsalted butter and 1/8 tsp salt to a small 1-Qt saucepan. Bring to a slow boil over medium heat while stirring until butter is melted.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add all of the flour to the hot liquid at once. Use a wooden spoon to mix the flour into the liquid and stir rapidly, until a ball of soft dough forms and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Place the pan back on low heat and continue to stir for 2 minutes; this is to remove some of the moisture.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat. Place the soft dough in the bowl of a stand mixer, and allow it to cool for 10 minutes so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs in the next step.
- With the mixer on medium speed, add eggs one at at time and beat fully until blended before adding the next egg.
- After mixing the last egg, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat on high for 1 more minute until smooth.
- Use a spatula to fill a large pastry bag (about 16-inch) with the batter. You may fit the bag with a plain round tip #1A, or cut the tip of a pastry bag to ¾-inch diameter.
- Pipe the batter out in a spiral pattern into fourteen 2-inch circles onto the prepared baking sheet. Leave 1-inch space between each circle.
- Bake on the center rack of the 450⁰ preheated oven for 15 minutes.
- Without opening the oven door, reduce the temperature to 325⁰ and continue baking for another 25 minutes.
- Use your fingertips to transfer the golden brown hollow pastries onto a cooking rack. Immediately use a sharp serrated knife to partially cut the tops, leaving a piece intact to act like a hinge to open and close. This helps release of steam and results in crispier shells. Cool completely.
- Add the heavy cream to the chilled bowl of an electric mixer with a whisk attachment. Add 5 tablespoons sugar and beat on medium low speed until soft peaks start forming. Add the vanilla and rosewater. Increase the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form.
- Fill the cooled shells with the whipped cream using a spoon or a pastry bag fitted with a large star tube.
- Serve the filled pastries within couple of hours. Dust the tops with powdered sugar right before serving.
Notes
If saving puffs for later, store without filling them. To reheat, preheat the oven to 300F and reheat directly on the rack for 3-4 minutes. Let cool before filling them.
