Totoro Cream Puffs

Are you in love with cream puffs?  I'm a hardcore cream puff lover, and so is my Dad.  Maybe I inherited the love from him?  Hahaha!

I chanced upon these cute Totoro Cream Puffs by Fatmum and finally made some yesterday for our afternoon tea.  The concept came from Anna's blog with step-by-step pics to guide you on how to make Totoro cream puffs.

To save time, I piped the eyes onto the choux pastry but it was a mistake.  As the pastry was not flat, the icing slided backwards and the shape got distorted.  My children ain't bothered with the flaws and gorged them down within seconds ^-^

Instead of following the cream puff recipe, I used back my trusted recipe here which was originally from Florence's blog.

Totoro Cream Puffs
Choux Pastry
Ingredients (8 puffs)
85ml water
50g butter
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence (I omit)
50g bread flour
20g cake flour
2 eggs (lightly beaten)

Method

1. Cook water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Turn the heat to low.
2. Add in the flour mixture in one go and mix with a wooden spoon till a dough is formed.
3. Still on low heat, cook the dough for 1 - 2 minutes till a thin white film is formed at the bottom of the saucepan.
4. Transfer dough to a mixing bowl and beat till it is lukewarm.
5. Add in egg by thirds and mix till well blended and smooth.
6. Place batter into piping bag and pipe it onto a lined pan in rounds of about 5cm in diameter. Spray some water on it.
7. Bake at 200C for 25 minutes then 180C for 8 - 10 minutes or till dry and golden brown in color. Turn off the oven and let it cool in the oven for 30 minutes.

Creme Patisserie
Ingredients

240ml skim milk
4 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg + 2 yolks
2 tbsp cornstarch

Method

1. Mix 60ml of milk with the cornstarch till smooth.
2. Add the beaten egg and yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
3. Boil the remaining milk with sugar in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Pour 1/3 of this hot milk into the egg cornstarch mixture. Stirring all the time.
4. Now pour the egg cornstarch mixture through a strainer into the rest of the boiling milk. Stirring constantly till mixture thicken. Do not burn the custard.
5. Cling wrap custard with glad wrap with the wrap touching the surface of the custard (this is to prevent a hard film forming on surface of the custard) and chill till ready to use.