BAKE | GIANT CREAM PUFFS

This weekend I've been craving the giant custard cream filled cream puffs from Beard Papa's. But I was too lazy to make the drive across town to get them, plus they are a bit pricey. I  decided to make my own and enlisted Cat's help to search online for a copycat recipe. I didn't find any I liked so I decided to double my mom's recipe and make them twice as big as we normally do. In our research we found that the thing that makes Beard Papa's cream puffs so yummy is the crunchy topping (like how muffins are always better with streusel). We also discovered that the custard cream needed to be made at least 24 hours in advance. No way were we going to wait that long! We decided on spreading ours with nutella and stuffing them with huge scoops of neopolitan ice cream. SO GOOD! We will definitely be making these again.

Ingredients
CREAM PUFF PASTRY

• 6 TBS butter, unsalted
• 3/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup flour
• 3 eggs

TOPPING (adapted from Little Japan Mama)

• 1/2 TBS butter
• 1/6 cup powdered sugar
• 1/6 cup flour

1. Melt butter and water in medium pot and bring to boil. Remove from heat and immediately add in flour all at once. Stir vigorously until dough forms a ball in middle of pot.
2. Let dough rest for 5 minutes.

3. In the meantime, make topping by melting butter in small saucepan. Stir in sugar, then flour until a ball is formed in the middle.

4. To pastry dough, add eggs in one at a time. Stir in between each egg addition until mixture is smooth.

5. Scoop heaping mound of pastry dough onto parchment lined baking sheet using cookie scoop. (An ice cream scooper may be better, but I worked with what I had)

6. Place discs of topping on top of each dough mound. (Cat did this by scooping up pieces with a rice scooper and flattening them using her fingers and then laying the pieces on top.)

7. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from baking sheet onto a wire rack. AREN'T THEY GORGEOUS! We couldn't believe how pretty they turned out.

8. When cool, slice open, add ice cream and nutella and enjoy! Next time (most likely tomorrow) we're going to try making them with custard cream filling. XO Allison.