Chocolate cream puffs
You’re undoubtedly familiar with cream puffs. This recipe is a variation on that classic, using choux pastry baked on the Big Green Egg, filled with crème pâtissière (pastry cream). As an extra treat, chocolate is added to the mix. You’ll also make the pastry cream in your kamado. In this recipe by pastry chef Hidde de Brabander, dark chocolate is used, but feel free to choose your favourite type of chocolate. Hidde infuses the pastry cream with vanilla, but you can substitute this for all kinds of different flavourings, such as cinnamon sticks, coffee beans, dried herbs, spices or tea. As a finishing touch, sprinkle chopped pistachios over the choux pastry before baking.
INGREDIENTS
Pastry cream
250 ml whole milk
½ vanilla pod
25 g patent flour
50 g granulated sugar (medium-fine)
60 g egg yolk
50 g dark chocolate
Choux pastry
100 ml whole milk
100 ml water
100 g butter
100 g of flour
5 g salt
200 g egg
Decoration
50 g peeled pistachios
IN ADVANCE
Light the charcoal in the Big Green Egg and heat it to 180°C with the heat shield and stainless steel grid.
For the pastry cream, place a small skillet on the grill and pour in the milk. Cut the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add both the seeds and the pod to the milk, close the lid and heat to 50°C, checking with a core thermometer.
Remove the skillet from the EGG and leave the milk to infuse for about 30 minutes.
Take out the vanilla pod, return the skillet to the grill and bring the milk to a boil. Meanwhile, sift the flour into a bowl and mix in the sugar and egg yolks. Finely chop the chocolate.
Stir a third of the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture, then pour it all back into the skillet with the remaining milk. Remove the skillet from the EGG as soon as the pastry cream thickens and starts to bubble.
Pour the pastry cream into a bowl and fold in the chopped chocolate until fully melted and combined. Cover with cling film to prevent a skin from forming and allow the chocolate pastry cream to cool.
Clean the skillet and place it back on the grill for the choux pastry. Pour in the milk and water, add the butter, close the lid, and bring to the boil.
Meanwhile, sift the flour and salt. Stir the flour into the milk mixture, stirring continuously until a dough forms that pulls away from the skillet’s bottom – this will not take long and you should do this, by way of exception, with the EGG lid open.
Remove the skillet from the EGG and transfer the dough to a bowl. Stir well and, once slightly cooled, add the eggs one by one, making sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Transfer the choux pastry to a piping bag. Roughly chop the pistachios.
Place a sheet of baking paper on the (cold) baking stone and pipe small mounds of batter onto it. Sprinkle with pistachios. Place the baking stone on the grill, close the lid and bake for about 15 minutes until puffed up, golden brown and cooked through.
Remove the cream puffs from the EGG and allow them to cool. Meanwhile, transfer the chocolate pastry cream to a piping bag and place it in the fridge.
METHOD
Using a piping nozzle, make a small hole in each puff.
Fill the cream puffs with the chocolate pastry cream and serve immediately or store them covered in the fridge until serving.
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