CHOUX PASTRY WITH GREEN TEA DIPLOMAT CREAM

 

Cream puff is one of my favorite desserts that I have loved since very young. Before I started baking as my hobby, I used to buy cream puffs at nearby bakery. That was an easy way to eat plenty of cream unless I bought cream cake. Eating cream puff one at a time, I was in heaven. And now, I make fresh, crisp choux pastry and soft, rich cream at my home.

 

 

Choux pastry should be baked on lowest oven rack. It has more volume and lovely shape. I realized this as I baked two sheet of pastry in different place of the oven. To get the finest quality, you have to make the batter properly. It's easy once you got the point.

 

 

A good thing about baking at home is you can make anything as you like. I love the combination of pastry cream and heavy cream in the proportion of 3:1. In this ratio, you can taste flavor and creaminess together. It's much more good than to use only heavy cream or pastry cream. For flavor, I added green tea this time.

In the desserts that contain green tea as flavoring, too much green tea is undesirable, you may taste something like grass not the one you want from your desserts. So don't add too much of green tea. I added a little bit more than I needed to get more vivid color. It wasn't that bad, but I will decrease the amount of green tea a little.

 

CHOUX PASTRY WITH GREEN TEA DIPLOMAT CREAM

 

yields 20 choux pastry and cream for 9 choux

 

Ingredients

 

for choux pastry

 

water 100g

butter 60g

a pinch of salt

cake flour 60g

2 to 3 eggs

 

for green tea pastry cream

 

milk 300g

egg yolk 60g

sugar 75g

cake flour 12g

cornstrach 9g

a pinch of salt

green tea powder 1Tbsp + 1tsp (10g)

 

for diplomat cream

 

green tea pastry cream

heavy cream 100g

sugar 7g

 

Instructions

 

To make choux pastry, add water, butter and salt to saucepan, bring it to a boil to melt butter. When butter is melted and water is boiling, reduce the heat and sift in cake flour and stir to moisten all flour.

On medium heat , cook the batter for 1 to 2 minutes stirring constantly with wooden spoon. Transfer batter to bowl and cool for 5 minutes.

Crack 3 eggs in a bowl and beat with a fork. Add eggs little by little to the batter, blend in with balloon whisk. The amount of eggs you adds is different on each occasion. The batter should be thick and smooth and will fall from a spoon in v-shape.

Pipe the dough onto the baking sheet, spacing about 5cm apart. Spray the dough with mister to help the pastry puff up.

Bake in 200℃  the lowest rack of the oven for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180℃ and continue to bake for 15 minutes more until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

To make green tea pastry cream, bring milk to a boil in a saucepan, add sifted green tea powder stir well.

In a bowl, add egg yolk, sugar and salt mix with balloon whisk until pale. Add hot milk little by little to the egg mixture then transfer back to the saucepan.

On medium heat, cook it until it's thickened. Pour the cream to a sifter to make it smooth. Cover with plastic, let it touch the surface of the cream to prevent forming skin. Cool completely.

To make diplomat cream, beat in heavy cream and sugar until firm. Stir pastry cream with balloon whisk to make it smooth. Add heavy cream to pastry cream in 2 addition.

To assemble, make a hole in the bottom of the choux and pipe in cream fully. Dust with powdered sugar and put it in a refrigerator. When it's cool, enjoy the delightful desserts.