Japanese Choux Cream Variation: Caramel Top Choux Cream

I’ve got a lot of e-mail asking for the Japanese choux cream recipe. I, myself, have tried to find the good recipe too. If you have a chance to eat the Japanese choux cream, I think you would love it. The softness of the fragrance and sweet filling is contrast to the crunchiness of the pastry, it’s so good. My love for Choux cream has began many years ago, in that day I couldn’t make it by myself. My choux pastry always becomes soft after getting out of the oven.

The problem comes from the moisture in the dough doesn’t evaporate from inside and makes the the pastry soggy (result is the soft choux pastry). So, here comes my solution: keep the door ajar for at last 5 minutes of the baking time this would let the moisture out of the oven (and lower the temperature as this recipe need to use the high heat to puff the pastry up but I find it’s too much for my choux). So the pastry will be drier and crunchier, the way I want.

The main recipe come from the book name …………… The book that devoted to the choux cream recipes. There are more interesting recipe from this book, which I will try it and show you if I have a chance.

Here comes the Japanese Choux Cream recipe that everyone ask for, but this is not a simple one. The caramel flavor and the crunchiness from the nut, I hope you will love it as I do.

Note: The recipe starts from making the caramel powder, the choux pastry but you can prepare the filling ahead if you want to.

Caramel Top Choux Cream

Makes 9-10

Caramel powder

7 g	Honey
7 g	unsalted butter
15 g	sugar

Line the baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.

Put all the ingredients in a small sauce pan, and place over low heat.

When the mixture turn into caramel color, pour onto the baking sheet.

Let the mixture dry, and put it in the small food processor and process until fine.

Choux Pastry
Makes 9-10

100 g	water
40 g	unsalted butter
4 g	sugar
60 g	cake flour
2 (100 g)	large eggs, at room temperature

1) Preheat your oven to 220 degrees C. Line baking sheet with waxed or parchment paper.

2) In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the water, butter, and sugar to the
boil.

3) Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium
and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very
quickly, stirring for a further 20 seconds to dry the dough.

4) Transfer the dough into a bowl, add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it
should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.

5) Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 1 cm plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
Pipe the dough, into 3 cm rounds onto the baking sheets.
Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff.

6) Bake for 25 minutes, or until they are puffed, golden and firm.

*I have my oven door maintained open with a wooden spoon for the last 5 minutes).

Crème Pâtissière

260 g	whole milk
60 g (about3)	egg yolks
32 g	Sugar 1
32 g	Sugar 2
18 g	cornstarch, sifted
10 g	Cake flour, sifted
	Vanilla bean
10 g	unsalted butter, at room temperature

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk and sugar 1 to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar 2, seeds from vanilla bean, cake flour and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth. Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F,stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled.

Make the caramel top

	Caramel powder
	Almond sliced

Preheat the oven to 250 °C

Cut the bottom of the pastry and place it in the baking sheet.

Sprinkle with almond slice and the caramel powder.

Bake for 3 minutes, or until the caramel is melted.

Make the Filling

100 g	Whipping cream
7 g	Sugar
	Crème Pâtissière

Pour the cream into a bowl and add the sugar. Using a balloon whisk or electric beaters, whip

Fold the whipped cream into the Crème Pâtissière.

Make the Crème Chantilly

360 g	Whipping cream
24 g	Sugar

Pour the cream into a bowl and add the icing sugar. Using a balloon whisk or electric beaters, whip the cream until it just forms soft peaks.

Assemble

Place the choux pastry up side down.

Spoon the filling into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm nozzle, and fill the hole with the filling.

Spoon the Crème Chantilly into a piping bag fitted with a 1 cm star nozzle and pipe over the top of the filling, place the caramel top on top of the cream.