This is a recipe for a Custard Puff from my childhood. The custard within is made from a packet of Bird’s Instant Custard (powder).
If you haven’t eaten one, you can rightly infer that they taste nothing like the fresh tasting, cream-filled puffs that we are more familiar with these days. I enjoy eating cream filled ones very much if it is prepared well – I look for voluminous cream that has to be flavoured with real vanilla beans so I lookout for distinct black specks of vanilla peppering the cream.
So why develop and post a recipe for “Old-Fashioned Custard Puffs”? As a child, I didn’t like them much but everyone else around me must have as we used to buy boxes of them. The puffs themselves were more often than not dry and bland tasting, and it had an odd “airiness” and “floppiness” to it. The custard within faired a little better. Those blobs of congealed custard tasted clearly artificial but I can only guess that might just have been their appeal.
So back to the question “Why bother making them?” I know enough people, often persons older than I, and still some around my age group who do like them. I can see the spark of nostalgia in their eyes as I watch them eat these little puffs.
Here then, is the recipe.
Credit must be given to the website, The Flavor Blender, for a very thorough write up on how to bake a successful Choux pastry. There is a lot of text to go through in her write-up but it is very informative if you want to know the why’s and how’s of a successful or unsuccessful choux pastry. The Choux pastry recipe below is hers and I have always had success using it. I have condensed and rewritten the instructions, changed the amount of eggs required slightly, adjusted baking times and some of the techniques she used to better suit my needs.
Old-Fashion Custard Puffs
| Prep: | ~1 hour |
| Cook: | ~2 minutes (dough) ~17 minutes + ~4 minutes (baking time) ~10 minutes (custard) |
| Inactive: | ~20 minutes to allow puffs to cool completely ~20 minutes to allow custard to cool completely |
| Level: | Medium and requires precision |
| Makes: | ~35 1.5″ (3.8cm) sized puffs |
| Oven Temperature: | 375F (190C) Oven tray at middle shelf |
| Can recipe be doubled? | Yes |
| Make ahead?- | Taste best freshly made but will keep well refrigerated up to 3 days |
Ingredients1 cup=250ml=8.45 US fl oz Choux pastry Bird’s Instant Custard filling |
Method
Preheat oven
1. Adjust oven tray to middle shelf.
2. Turn on oven to 375F (190C).
Choux pastry dough
1. Slice butter thinly and drop them into a preferably stainless steel pot with the water, salt and sugar.
2. Turn on heat to medium (and it’s important that you keep the heat at medium). My electric burner runs from Power 1 – 9. I set it at Power 6.
3. Stir with a spatula to help butter, sugar and salt to dissolve before it comes to a boil.
4. Once it comes to a boil, remove from heat source and pour all of the sifted flour over it.
5. Use a spatula to work flour in, ensuring there are no lumps.
6. Return back to the burner (still at medium power) and continue stirring with spatula until one or all of the following happens (it takes ~1 – 2 minutes):
(i) there is a thin film of dough sticking to bottom of the stainless steel pot OR for a nonstick pot, you will see tiny droplets of oil
(ii) dough has clumped into a ball, sides of pot is relatively clean
(iii) if you stick a teaspoon into the middle of the dough it will not fall over
7. Transfer dough immediately into a mixing bowl.
8. Stir in the vanilla extract. Spread dough out to facilitate its cooling.
Cool to at least 160F (71C) and add beaten eggs gradually
1. Once temperature has come down to at least 160F (71C) (it would feel comfortably warm to the touch), it’s time to add the beaten eggs gradually. I have had it down to as low as 110F (43C) once and had experienced no resulting issues.
2. Before you add the beaten eggs, keep in mind that you may not use up all the eggs (but I have always used up all the eggs -that’s the benefit of weighing ingredients).
3. Add ~2 Tablespoons of beaten eggs into dough and work it in with a spatula.
4. Continue to add eggs in ~2 Tablespoons increments, holding off the last ~1 Tablespoon of eggs as you might not need it.
5. Stop adding eggs:
(i) when the dough changes from a dull to one with a glossy sheen
(ii) when you can draw a finger along the surface of the dough to create a trench and it leaves a clear imprint of a trench with sturdy sides
(iii) when you can lift the spatula vertically up from the dough and you have what looks like an upside down Chinese painting brush or an inverted “V” shape of a dough hanging down.
Transfer dough filling
1. Sit a piping bag in a tall cup. Fold top ends of piping bag over rim of cup. If you don’t have a piping bag, use a sturdy food-safe plastic bag.
2. Push dough as far down into the piping bag as it will go, then gather and twist the top ends of bag shut.
3. Rest filled piping bag in cup. Pointy end down.
Prepare baking tray
1. Line a baking tray with a silicon mat – this is best for baking choux pastry.
2. If you don’t have one, use parchment paper, and mist it with water just before piping the dough – the misting gives a better rise. You do not need to mist a silicon mat as the properties in the mat gives it better heat conduction.
If you want the best looking choux pastry, keep these points in minds:
1. When piping, the tip of the piping bag should always touch the dough (so you don’t create any air pockets)
2. Keep piping bag straight as you pipe
3. Apply smooth and even pressure as you pipe
Piping dough onto baking tray
1. Cut off bottom tip of piping bag to get an opening of ~1/2″ (1.25cm).
2. Keep pointers outlined above in mind.
3. Hover piping bag tip close to the silicon mat, ~1/8″(~0.3cm) off the mat. Pipe until you get an ~1.3″(~3.3cm) dollop of a circle. Do not lift up the bag as you work on getting that circle.
4. Once you get the dollop of a circle, detach piping bag from dough, by pulling bag up quickly.
5. You will have a pointy end, that’s to be expected and can be solved easily but for now, continue to pipe until the tray is filled. Leave at least ~3/4″(1.9cm) between each circle of dough.
6. To smoothen the pointy tips, dip your finger in water and smoothen down the pointy tips. Level out any unevenness but don’t stress over it.
7. Bake on a single rack. Do not bake on two racks. Hold off piping and baking another tray until the tray in the oven is about ready to be removed.
Bake for an initial 17 minutes and then another 4 minutes
1. Bake for 17 minutes and do not open the oven door during this time.
2. After 17 minutes of baking, the choux pastry shells should have expanded, puffed up and look golden. You should also be able to smell the pastry shells. If not, check on it again in ~1 -2 minutes.
3. Open oven door, and without removing tray from oven, use a skewer or a toothpick to prick a hole in the side of each pastry shell to allow moisture to escape and help the insides dry out. Turn the tray back side front.
4. Leave to bake for another 4 minutes or until the pastry shells turn golden brown.
Cool choux pastry shells
1. Transfer pastry shells onto a cooling rack, ensuring that none are touching each other.
2. Cool it completely away from any drafts.
Bird’s Instant Custard filling
1. In a pot, whisk Instant Custard powder, salt and sugar.
2. Gradually whisk in the 8 Tablespoons milk, removing all lumps.
3. Add vanilla extract and the remaining milk into same pot, then whisk to mix.
4. Cook over medium heat (not any higher or custard will taste “raw”), whisking until you get a thick consistency -the whisk will leave trail marks in the custard. Keep in mind that the consistency changes from liquid to custard very quickly as soon as the liquid becomes hot enough – this takes ~10 minutes if using cold milk. At medium heat, the first 5 minutes of cooking doesn’t require constant stirring as the milk takes some time to heat up but do whisk thereafter.
5. Transfer immediately to a plate to cool before use.
6. It will firm up as it cools but just stir it around and it will be malleable again.
Transfer custard filling
1. Transfer cooled custard into a piping bag. To do so, sit the piping bag in a tall cup and fold top ends of piping bag over rim of cup.
2. Push custard as far down the piping bag as it will go, then gather and twist the top ends of bag shut.
3. Cut off bottom tip of bag to get an opening of ~1/2″ (1.25cm).
Piping the filling
1. Use a chopstick or a piping tip to make an opening up the bottom of each pastry shell.
2. Push the tip of the piping bag to the far end of the pastry shell and start piping. As the pastry shell fills up, gradually draw back the piping bag as you feel it filing up with custard.
3. The amount of filling in my recipe will fill up all the pastry shells into plump Custard Puffs.
Serve or store
1. Serve them straight aware or store them refrigerated for up to 3 days in an airtight container.
Tips
Fill them with cream
Fill them with freshly whipped cream that has been sweetened with my Homemade Vanilla Sugar.
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