Cream Puffs

Cream Puffs. Ok, so the words are daunting. But-I have always wanted to make them, and since they are both on my list why not knock out a choux dough and a pastry cream? Besides, the title of the recipe included the words "not as hard as you think they'd be". That's encouraging, and sometimes that's all I need to take a deep breath and try. Which is what I will upfront admit this was-a try. They weren't what I had hoped, but I am still proud of myself for what came of them! And that's saying a lot-generally I slap my wrists for failing in the kitchen.

 
The choux was fun to make-I think that the dough may have been too runny, and I can't quite figure out what could have caused this since I followed the recipe religiously. Perhaps one too many eggs? I made my first batch and three out of the eight (I made large ones) "puffed" properly. The others I tasted, and they tasted exactly like a cream puff dough-this was so exciting! But, sadly I discarded them (meaning I gave them to my roommates to dip in the extra pastry cream.)

Because I got so close with these, I know I want to try them again. The ones that turned out were fantastic-I whipped up some heavy cream and folded that in with a vanilla custard I had made earlier on. Piped it into the puffs, and topped them with a simple ganach. Luckily I wasn't discouraged enough to not try them again. These shall be perfected one day.