Cream Puffs
Boston cream puffs of the baker's shops. Eclairs a la creme, Profitiolles, Petits--choux, etc. 1 pint of water. 1/2 pound of lard or butter. 1/2 pound of flour. 10 eggs. Little salt.
Bring the water to a boil with the lard and salt in it. Put in the flour all at once, and stir the mixture over the fire about five minutes, or till it becomes a stiff paste. Then take it off and beat in the eggs one at a time. Drop small spoonfuls of the paste on baking sheets very slightly greased, allowing an inch or more of space between them, and bake in a moderate oven about 20 minutes. Cut a slit in the side and fill the puffs with pastry cream. Makes 40 to To the best bakers who make them in large quantities daily, there is nothing easier than cream puffs, but it is not the less true that they are "mighty uncertain" where made only occasionally and baked in the uneven heat of a cooking range, instead of an oven.
A very ordinary workman, 1 once knew, traveled as a first-class pastry cook from town to town on the strength of a knack he had of making these trifles in greater perfection than anybody else. It was his one trick, but it stood him in good stead for short spells.
The more the paste is beaten up against the side of the pan as the eggs are added, and after, the more the puffs will expand in baking. When they are perfect they are nearly smooth and look like small cauliflowers, whence, perhaps, comes one of their French names. To make them so, the paste must be almost soft enough to run out of shape on the pans; another egg may be required.
It is safer to use a little less lard or butter and a little more flour than the receipt, for a first trial.
The puffs will not rise at all if the paste be allowed to become cold before the eggs are beaten into it.
The handsomest puffs are those baked done without the oven door ever being opened in the meantime.