Cream Puffs (Shu Cream)

I blame the japanese drama "Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend)" for making me salivate with the protagonist's incessant baking of cream puffs and thus starting my cream puff craze. How can anyone resist not having one after seeing Riko baking tray after tray of golden brown cream puffs filled with luscious custard cream? I knew I definitely had to have one, but there was none to be had in Dublin. Thus began my baking craze.
(Credits: Photo of Zettai Kareshi from Dramawiki.)

Now everyone knows that there are loads of recipes on the internet, but trying to find one that works for you is like sifting through a haystack. I was thus surprised when the first recipe I found on About.com worked so well and was so easy to make that I had my first yummy cream puffs in an hour. The custard cream was still not satisfactory though as I didn't like the taste of the flour in the cream filling.

After a bit more experimenting with the filling (I realise that Bird's custard powder is more agreeable with the palate), my cream puffs have finally been perfected and ready to go.

Recipe: makes 8 - 9 puffs

1) To make the choux pastry puff: -

3 tbsp (45g) butter

2 tsp caster sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/2 water

2 eggs

- Preheat oven to 375F or 190 degC.

- Beat eggs in a bowl. Put butter, sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil.

- Add flour into the butter mixture, stir quickly and remove from heat immediately.

- Add eggs in gradually while mixing well.

- Put dough into plastic bag/pastry bag and squeeze out as small mounds onto baking tray. Dip finger in cold water to smooth down the tops of the mounds.

- Bake for 30 min. Open door a little for 5 min, then take out of oven to serve.

- You can use a piping bag with a metal nozzle to poke into the puff and squeeze the custard cream in, or just cut a small hole at the side and squeeze the cream in.

2) To make the custard cream: -

1 Tbsp custard flour

1/2 pint milk (about 240 ml)

2 Tbsp sugar

- Blend custard with a little water to make a paste.

- Boil milk and sugar, add flour mixture.

- Cook to right consistency and flavour with vanilla essence.

Digital Scrapbooking?

In my quest to create a lovely new banner to match my spanking new site, I scoured through the WWW and came across a novel concept - Digital Scrapbooking! Took me quite a while to learn how to use photoshop to do it (had the software for a couple of years now and yet never really learnt the power of photoshop) but thanks to a simple tutorial by Overstuffed and digital scrapbook paper by Joyful Heart Designs, I had my banner up and working in an hour.

So there it is, my first ever self-made banner and step into the world of digital scrapbooking! (You probably can tell that I'm pretty proud of my new banner!)

Don't worry, I'll be posting up my baking exploits soon. =)