In her latest cookbook, “Baking With Dorie” (Mariner, $35), Dorie Greenspan presents readers with 150 tantalizing recipes both savory and sweet. This is the 14th of Greenspan’s cookbooks, a spectrum that has meant for many cooks, Dorie Greenspan equals baking. Intrigued that in a book with so many recipes she labeled cream puffs one of her two “perfect little pastries” (with meringues as the other), I had to learn more.
Greenspan writes that her passion for cream puffs came after she learned from French pastry chef Pierre Hermé that cream puff dough, once shaped, could be frozen and then baked straight from the freezer. “This piece of information was transformative, because it moved something I’d thought of as fancy in the realm of everyday,” she notes in her discussion of these little pastries.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that cream puffs were a favorite. After all, those who follow Greenspan know that hot-from-the-oven gougères have long been her signature nibble, served to arriving guests alongside a cold glass of white wine. As she notes, when the dough is prepared ahead of time and frozen, these little puffs can go right from the freezer to the oven and are ready to serve in 30 minutes. And Greenspan stresses that these should be served right from the oven.
Cream puffs get their name from the way they puff in the oven, and much of that puff comes from eggs, beaten into a hot flour and butter mixture, and the only leavener used in the dough.
Thinking of pastries that should be served right from the oven brought me to popovers, another pastry that gets its puff from eggs, and certainly a pastry that’s been bedeviling home cooks for as long as we’ve been trying to bake them.
While she doesn’t devote a chapter to popovers, Greenspan includes a recipe for Cheese Puffers, something she calls a cross between a muffin and a popover. Well-beaten eggs and milk are combined with flour and any flavorings. As with popovers, the batter goes into a hot, well-greased muffin tin and then right away into a very hot oven so each puff gets a quick boost to help it rise quickly.
So what about foolproof popovers? At Buckhead’s King + Duke, the bread service includes White Cheddar Popovers with the kitchen turning out as many as 600 popovers an evening. If anyone has perfected the way to get perfect popovers every time, it would be Chrysta Poulos, Rocket Farm Restaurants’ director of pastry.
We turned to Greenspan and Poulos for tips on how to get the best puff out of these pastries:
• It’s important that the milk or milk-and-water mixture be hot before adding it to the eggs.
• Beating the milk-and-flour mixture, whether for cream puffs or popovers, is one of the most important steps. Be sure to follow the recipe’s directions.
• With cream puffs, be sure to have the first egg fully incorporated before adding the second.
• Popover batter, like crepe batter, should be prepared ahead of time and then used right away. The batter must be made two hours ahead of time and the popovers should be baked at that point. No holding the batter overnight.
• Cream puff batter should be shaped as soon as it is made. Then it can be baked right away or can be frozen as soon as shaped. When frozen solid, pack the pastries airtight and when you’re ready to bake, arrange the frozen pastries on a lined baking sheet, then let them sit on the counter while the oven heats.
• Serve popovers and cream puffs immediately after baking.
RECIPES
In “Baking With Dorie,” Dorie Greenspan offers five cream puff recipes, including Gouda Gougères, the latest in the many variations of gougères she has served over the years. We share one of her sweet cream puff versions here along with her Cheese Puffers and Chrysta Poulos’ recipe for the White Cheddar Popovers served at Buckhead’s King + Duke.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
King + Duke White Cheddar Popovers
These white cheddar popovers are part of the bread service at King + Duke, and the recipe was created by Chrysta Poulos, director of pastry for Rocket Farm Restaurants.
For the showiest results, use a popover pan with cups that are 2 inches wide and 2 1/5 inches deep. These pans are readily available and come in sizes that bake six or 12 popovers at a time. Popover pans have deep, steep-sided wells that force the batter up while baking so your popovers end up with crisp sides and a puffy top. This recipe will result in dense popovers as opposed to the hollow ones.
At the restaurant, a batch this size would be made with six extra-large eggs. Because we test recipes with large eggs, we weighed out both extra-large and large eggs by volume and found that seven large eggs were the equivalent. Poulos recommends using King Arthur flour. We mixed our batter in a 5-quart stand mixer and found we needed every bit of that volume to accommodate the batter.
Credit: Mark Weinberg
Credit: Mark Weinberg
Chocolate-Tipped Cream Puff Pocky Sticks
We liked these as a sweet treat that’s not too much of an indulgence. And the sticks make a charming presentation, a nice addition to a dessert buffet. If you want an alternative glaze, Greenspan suggests substituting white chocolate for the other chocolates here and adding a teaspoon of matcha. We can see these decorated for the holidays with a glaze spiced with 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin spice and decorated with Demerara sugar crystals or flavored with a drop of peppermint extract and decorated with crushed peppermints.
Adapted from a recipe in “Baking With Dorie” by Dorie Greenspan (Mariner, $35).
Credit: Mark Weinberg
Credit: Mark Weinberg
Cheese Puffers
Greenspan suggests the cheddar and scallions in this recipe are just one variation. Substitute any cheese that melts well such as Monterey Jack or Gruyere, and experiment with spices if you wish by adding paprika or mustard powder. You can even include a few tablespoons of chopped nuts.
Adapted from a recipe in “Baking With Dorie” by Dorie Greenspan (Mariner, $35).
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