Passionfruit Cream Puffs #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

 Libby Klein I love cream puffs. They are very easy to make gluten free because the custard filling is thickened with corn starch, making it gluten free to begin with. This is the same recipe as my cream puff swans, only with the addition of tart passion fruit puree in the custard, and an easier method of making the shells.

You can make cute little puffs instead of the monster puffs I always seem to make. I tend to forget just how much these pouf when they bake. To make tiny bit sized puffs, your batter should be pipped or spooned smaller than a golf ball. They will double in size.

Passionfruit Cream Puffs

Yield: 12 large cream puffs

Choux Paste

Ingredients
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter
1 cup water
Hefty pinch salt
1 cup flour OR gluten-free flour blend that has xanthan gum already added
*if your gluten-free flour blend does NOT have Xanthan gum already added (like Bob’s Red Mill does not) add ½ teaspoon xanthan gum to the recipe
4 eggs

Passionfruit Pastry Cream

Ingredients

2 cups whole milk

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar
5 Tbsp cornstarch
Heavy pinch salt

1/2 cup passionfruit puree, thawed if frozen

2 Tbsp butter

Later:
1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
 

DIRECTIONS:

 Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. In a heavy saucepan, add 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. 

When the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour all at once, mixing quickly (the mixture will form a ball). Let it stand for a couple of minutes to cool a few degrees. Transfer to the bowl of your stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, add the eggs to the flour mixture, one at a time until you have a silky dough. 

  

Scoop into small rounds on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Dip your fingertips into cold water and smooth the mounds of dough into pretty balls. They will puff us as they bake.

Bake at 375° F. for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Poke a hole in the side of each one with a knife and put them back in the oven for 2 minutes. Take them out and let them cool.

Make the pastry cream.

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the milk to a simmer. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, cornstarch, and salt.

Bring the mixture in the saucepan to a boil while stirring continuously. Continue to simmer until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk hot milk into the egg-yolk mixture a little at a time to bring up the temperature of the yolks. Add everything back into the saucepan and add the passionfruit puree. Cook over medium-low heat while whisking continuously until the custard is so thick it coats a spoon, like soft pudding. 

Now cook it until it boils for one minute. It will be very thick even while hot.

Remove from heat and stir in 2 Tbsp of butter. Transfer the custard to a shallow dish and cover it with plastic wrap down to the surface of the custard. Chill until the custard is completely cold. The plastic wrap won't even cling to the custard it's so thick.

In a separate bowl, beat the 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.

With a rubber spatula, fold a little of the whipped cream into the custard to loosen it up. 

Then fold all the custard into the whipped cream. Chill again until thick and stiff.

Now there are 2 ways to fill your cooled cream puffs. You can either slice them in half like hamburger buns and dollop pastry cream in the middle, or you can transfer the pastry cream into a piping bag – and using the hole you poked into them at the end of baking, squeeze pastry cream into the shell until it won’t take anymore. You’ll know it’s full because the shell will swell and the pastry cream with start to push back out. 

Top your cream puffs with a dusting of powdered sugar if desired. Leave me a comment and let me know what your favorite pastry is.

Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, 30-something recovering alcoholic and former cop is trying to reinvent herself as a musician—between AA meetings, dodging eccentric neighbors at her trailer park, and reconnecting with her mysterious dad—in this ​unforgettable new mystery brimming with hilarity and heart.

Layla is taking her new life one day at a time from the Lake Pinecrest Trailer Park she now calls home. Being alone is how she likes it. Simple. Uncomplicated. Though try telling that to the group of local ladies who are in relentless pursuit of Layla as their new BFF, determined to make her join them for coffee and donuts.

After her first career ended in a literal explosion, Layla’s trying to eke out a living as a rock musician. It’s not easy competing against garage bands who work for tacos and create their music on a computer, while all she has is an electric guitar and leather-ish pants. But Layla isn’t in a position to turn down any gig. Which is why she’s at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, watching as Chuckles the Clown takes a bow under the balloon animals. No one expects it will be his last . . .

Who would want to kill a clown—and why? Layla and her unshakable posse are suddenly embroiled in the seedy underbelly of the upper-class world of second wives and trust fund kids, determined to uncover what magnetic hold a pudgy, balding clown had over women who seem to have everything they could ever want. Then again, Layla knows full well that people are rarely quite what they seem—herself included . . .

Libby Klein writes ridiculously funny murder mysteries from her Northern Virginia office with a very naughty calico Persian named Miss Eliza Doolittle, and a sweet black Lab named Vader. She can name that tune for 70s and 80s rock in the first few notes, and she's translated her love of classic rock into her Layla Virtue Mysteries. Libby was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents her from eating gluten without exploding. Because bread is one of her love languages, she includes the recipes for gluten free goodies in her Cape May based Poppy McAllister series. Most of her hobbies revolve around travel, and eating, and eating while traveling. She insists she can find her way to any coffee shop anywhere in the world, even while blindfolded. Follow all of her nonsense on her website www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/