Wicked Cream Puffery by Mickey Flagg #WickedWednesday #Recipe

WICKED WEDNESDAY

Don't we always love a wickedly good recipe? And read to the end about a wickedly good book too. Please welcome my guest, Mickey Flagg. 

I have a delicious dessert to share along with a bit of a story about those wickedly important holiday bakes that become tradition. Every Christmas, my mother baked a particular Italian cookie. One or two of my aunts always came to help. She had a large Sicilian family, and this recipe called for 14 eggs, 5 lbs. of flour, a pound of butter, and so on. I’m sure you get the picture. With no bowl big enough, the flour formed a well on the kitchen table, the eggs and everything else went in the middle, and strong arms kneaded the cookie dough until they were ready to be rolled and shaped into mounds. The result? Cookies on every single flat surface available. Then the icing and sprinkles… another multi-hour task filled with love. 

I never mastered those traditional cookies, although I bake them every Christmas. But one of my mother’s cookbooks ended up in my hands some 25 years ago. Woman’s Day Collector’s Cookbook of 1960, priced at 95 cents. The book, its pages brown with age, had never been opened. One recipe called to me. Hmmm…. mom never made cream puffs. Neither did my 17 aunts (7 on my father’s side and 10 on my mother’s). So, I began a new tradition.   

For the past 25 years, I can’t show up to Christmas dinner at my sister’s home without a large tray of petite cream puffs. It’s a game with my nephews… how many can they pile on their plates and consume after a scrumptious meal. We all laugh. I beam with pride. This year, our newest family member, only months old, had a taste of the cream filling. Her eyes brightened and everyone witnessed the next generation of traditional cream puff fans.

 Making Petite Cream Puffs can be a bit complicated, but a wickedly delightful dessert. 

Ingredients

1 cup water                 ¼ cup of butter           ¼ teaspoon salt           1 cup sifted flour

4 large eggs beaten     Cream filling              Confectioners sugar 

In a saucepan heat water, butter, and salt to a full rolling boil. Reduce heat, and quickly stir in flour, mixing vigorously with wooden spoon until mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball. Remove from heat, transfer the ball into a large mixing bowl, and add beaten eggs in 6 additions, beating after each addition (electric mixer at low speed makes this easier). Make sure your oven is very hot, so pre-heat and bake at 400º F. Drop dough from a metal spoon onto greased baking sheets, forming mounds 1” apart. For petite cream puffs, measure a little less than a heaping teaspoon of dough for each. This will make about 24 puffs. Bake until they are golden brown so the shell will be hard and hollow. Remove to racks. The puffs are cooled completely before you fill them. I often wait a day to let them dry out.  

 Whipped Cream Puff filling: In a cold mixing bowl, add a pint of heavy or whipping cream and mix on high. Add confectioners sugar to taste (I prefer the whipped cream moderately sweet). It must be very stiff so that the beaters stand on their own. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for a few hours to get the whipped cream very cold before filling the puffs. 

When you’re ready to fill the puffs, cut them open and pull out any soft center. Fill a large Ziploc bag and cut a small tip out of the bottom if you don’t have pastry filling bags available. Generously fill cream puffs so the cut-off lids look like little hats on each one. Generously sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Refrigerate until serving.  

Just like the main character in my novel, Petite Cream Puffs are wickedly complicated as well as wickedly good! Here’s a little info about The Vampire’s Retribution:

Dreams are often hidden desires… even if they are terrifying. Michael Malone, a mystically enhanced vampire, destroys three immortal sorcerers and begins an unprecedented battle. Poisoned and captured, he’s left to rot in a cell beneath the city. Guided by the heavenly entity known as Helena, he spins a complex fantasy of survival. Michael’s fading mind creates emotional twists and unexpected turns, passionate highs and very realistic lows. Is there deliverance or the end to his immortal existence at its conclusion? Each revelation offers hope. Yet Michael’s last words doggedly remain “Let me die.” His original reasons for the singular battle are noble. One is retribution. The other is love.

Buy links: Amazon.com: The Vampire's Retribution (The Champion Chronicles Book 1) eBook : Flagg, M.: Books

Barnes & Noble: The Vampire's Retribution by M. Flagg, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

 

About Mickey:

Always an avid reader, the realm of paranormal fiction is the perfect landing point for Mickey Flagg. After a successful career as a music teacher and an urban school administrator, she continues to spin stories of passion, love and redemption. She’s been a contributor in a book on urban music education and has also authored an article for Still Standing, a web-magazine about loss and healing. Named a Distinguished Music Educator at the 2010 Yale Music Symposium, Mickey is a life-long New Jersey resident, a member of Liberty States Fiction Writers, and a Professor in Residence with a local university.