Gruyere Popovers

Wonderful, right? I was so proud of myself for pulling this off using a muffin tin. I saw pictures of different attempts, and most of the popovers either didn't rise, or only rose about 1/2 inch.

I have quite a bit of milk left in the fridge, and I honestly thought that this would use up most of it. Nope. I think I need to make some kind of curd or cream some time soon.

Surprisingly, I don't have a smart story about popovers. I've never made popovers before, and neither has my mother. So, I got nothin'.

I found this recipe on Bon Appetit. I've been cooking a lot of recipes from there nowadays. I feel a little odd. Anyway, the recipe is fairly simple. Not a lot of fuss. That's why I liked it in the first place.

Gruyere Popovers (adapted from bon appetit)

2 cups of flour

1 1/4 tsp of salt

2 cups of whole milk

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups of grated Gruyere

A little bit of butter

1. Place two 12-cup muffin pans and one 6-cup muffin pans in the oven. Preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Sift flour and salt into a medium bowl. Then, heat the milk over medium heat until it reaches about 125 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Then, gradually whisk in the warm milk. Whisk in the flour mixture just until everything is combined. The batter may still be slightly lumpy. Please avoid over mixing!
4. Remove the hot muffin pans from the oven, and brush every other cup with butter (generously). If you don't bake the popovers in every other cup, they won't rise properly. So, please just wash a couple of extra pans. It's worth it.
5. Use a measuring cup to pour 1/4 cup of batter into the greased muffin cups. You should have exactly the amount of batter to make 16 popovers. Then, top each of the popovers with 1 1/2 tbs of cheese. Bake them for about 40 minutes. DO NOT PEEK. They'll deflate. Once they are done, remove from the pan immediately to cool.

As you can see, I was lazy. I did not get out an extra pan. And, see? Half of them didn't rise properly. So, trust me; I know what I'm talking about. As far the taste, they were all great. They're like huge profiteroles. Except cheesy. And, I had an urge to sop up some sort of sauce with it. Is that wrong?

I did have one problem, though.

I had cut the recipe in half and made only eight popovers. Seven of them turned out like that--bottomless. I only got one perfect popover out of eight. So, to get a dozen perfect ones, I would've had to make... 96?

Look at that one perfect popover. It even has an ass. If any of you know what I did, or didn't do, that caused this, please put it in a comment. Sharing is caring.

Choux a la Creme

Cream puffs. Growing up, my mom made this really often, and her cream puffs are absolutely delicious. It was kind of daunting trying to make her cream puffs. And, sure enough, my cream puffs weren't top notch.

I messed up on the dough. It was all crumbly, but I was able to put it together and spoon it on the baking sheet. I think I didn't have enough egg whites in it. The pastry cream recipe, I think, called for way too much cornstarch. The taste was great, but the textures of the pastry and the cream were not satisfactory.

As I said in an earlier post, I do not have my camera right now. So, you'll just have to believe me when I say that I made a way better batch of cream puffs yesterday. I didn't use my mom's recipe at all. Here's the good recipe.

Choux a la Creme


Pate a Choux (recipe courtesy of Anne Burrell. Find it here)
1/2 cup of water
1/2 stick of butter
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
2 eggs


Pastry cream (original recipe here)
2 cups of milk
1/4 cup of sugar
2 egg yolks
1 egg
1/4 cup of cornstarch
1/4 cup of sugar (originally called for 1/3 cup, but I reduced it)
2 tbs of butter
1 tsp of vanilla extract

1. To make the pastry cream, bring the milk and 1/4 cup of sugar to a boil over medium heat.
2. In a bowl, use a hand mixer to whisk the egg yolks and egg. Add the cornstarch and the remaining sugar, and mix until the mixture is smooth and pale in color.
3. When the milk comes to a boil, drizzle into the egg mixture slowly so that you don't cook the eggs. Use a whisk for this process. Put the mixture back in the pan and slowly bring to a boil while continuously stirring.
4. When the mixture thickens, remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla. Pour into a heatproof container and put a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Put it in the a fridge for at least an hour.
5. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
6. To make the dough, put water, butter and salt in a pot and heat until the butter melts completely.
7. Add the flour all at once and stir until the dough forms a ball. Dump into a bowl and let it sit for a couple of minutes before incorporating the eggs.
8. After a couple of minutes, mix in the eggs one at a time using a mixer to ensure that the dough is evenly combined. You should end up with a pasty, sticky dough.
9. You can either use a pastry bag or a Ziploc bag to pipe the dough on to the baking sheet. Or, you can do what I did, and just spoon it on. Whatever you do, leave at least one inch between each puffs. They grow! Bake for 20-25 minutes.
10. After both the pastry cream and the pastries are cool, cut the pastries horizontally and fill away.

The pastry was light and it puffed up really well. The pastry cream was just the right consistency, and the recipe actually makes twice the amount you'll need to fill the profiteroles. So, I'm making some fruit tarts tomorrow (inspired by La Cuisine d'Helene's Parisian Fruit Tarts).