Recipe: Chocolate Nutella Cream Puffs

Recipe Source: (Main recipe) - Atkinson, Catherine with Mary Banks, Christine France and Christine McFadden.  The Chocolate and Coffee Bible.  Anness Publishing, London, 2007 p. 219.  (Filling) - Poole, Shona Crawford.  Ice Cream.  Conran Octopus Ltd., London, 2001 p. 68 

I tried to make these cream puffs for about a month.  Every time I tried, there was a problem.  I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter, but the recipe kept failing.  Why?  Because the pastry cream, despite being whipped to a frenzy to do medieval flagellant sects proud, quickly ceased to be a pastry cream and became a pastry milk.  This happened every time.  No joke.  Countless eggs and half-pints of cream gave their lives for the cause, and to no avail. 

I cursed, and I swore, and I whined, and I groused.  My husband said, "Why don't you just call Terry?  He's a pastry chef.  He'll tell you what's wrong."  This was not the right answer.  I refuse to cook anything sweet in front of Terry, because he will mock me mercilessly.  I generally deserve it, but still.  This is not how I want to spend hours of my day.  Besides, he'd be likely to say, "You want cream puffs?  I'll make you cream puffs," and then turn out something so wonderful it would make me cry.  That was not the point.  I wanted to make them, myself.  I had to come up with a solution to the pastry non-cream.

At that point it hit me.  Last July I posted one of my favorite recipes of all time, a recipe for chocolate hazelnut ice cream.  It's a very simple recipe, basically nothing more than a Nutella-flavored whipped cream that you freeze.  What if I didn't freeze it?  What if I, say, loaded it into a pastry bag?  More decadent than the original recipe, more exciting, more creative, more Nutella.  Hah!  That was my solution.  And do you know what?  It worked.  It worked marvelously.  It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt since grade school.  More importantly, it gave me cream puffs. 

Chocolate Nutella Cream Puffs (makes 12; approx. $0.71/each)

1 cup flour

1 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 cup butter

4 eggs

2 3/4 cups whipping cream, divided

4 ounces Nutella or other chocolate-hazelnut spread

2 ounces confectioner's sugar

1/4 cup butter

8 ounces chocolate chips - I used a combination of 60% cacao and semi-sweet

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I'd usually use almond here, but I didn't want it to conflict with the hazelnut in the Nutella.)

Equipment:

• Saucepan
• Pastry bag with normal tip
• Bowls
• Baking sheets
• Hand mixer - multiple changes of beaters would be really helpful

1. Preheat your oven to 425. 
2. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl. 
3. Bring the water, salt, sugar and butter to a boil over medium heat in the saucepan.
4. Remove from heat and add the flour and cocoa mixture all at once, stirring vigorously until it is smooth and leaves the sides of the pan clean.
5. Return to heat and cook for 1 minute, beating constantly.
6. Remove from heat again.  Using the hand mixer, beat in the four eggs, one at a time. 
7. Use a pair of spoons to dole out twelve roughly equal balls of the pastry onto two greased cookie sheets.  A pastry bag would give you prettier cream puffs, but I didn't want to dirty two. 
8. Bake 35 - 40 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool for at least an hour.  I'm not kidding. 
9. When you're ready to fill the cream puffs, pour out 3/4 pint of the whipping cream. 
10. Put the Nutella in a bowl and slacken it with 6 tablespoons of that 3/4 pint of whipping cream.
11. Put the rest of the 3/4 pint and the confectioner's sugar in a mixing bowl.  Use the hand mixer to whip the cream to the soft peak stage.
12. Add the slackened Nutella and whip to the stiff peak stage.
13. Spoon the whipped cream into your pastry bag, which should be fitted with a standard tip. 
14. Working quickly, jab the tip of the pastry bag into a cream puff and fill with cream.  Repeat with all cream puffs.  You should have just about enough. 
15. At this point, you can refrigerate the cream puffs until you're ready to deal with the glaze. 
16. To make the glaze, fashion a double boiler with a metal bowl set over just simmering water in a saucepan. 
17. Combine the remaining 1 1/4 cups whipping cream, 1/4 cup butter, chocolate chips, corn syrup and vanilla in the bowl.  Stir constantly until the chocolate has melted. 
18. Let the glaze sit for twenty to thirty minutes, long enough to thicken up. 
19. Carefully dip the tops of your cream puffs into the glaze.  There will be some glaze left over. 
20. Serve and enjoy, or refrigerate until you're ready to eat them. 

Comments

[Sophie]

Excellent dessert!! Wow, I am amazed by your talents!
This is something for me!!!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!! Great comfort food!

[The Duo Dishes]

Making puffs is not an easy feat. Yours sound totally good. Just the thing we'd like to eat.

[Fearless Kitchen]

Duo - thanks! I don't mind admitting that I liked eating them too :)

Sophie - they were pretty comforting... give them a try sometime, once I got the filling down it was easier than it looked.

[Isabela]

cool post!