FNCCC 6 – Duff Goldman – Baking Challenge! Bailey’s Irish Cream Puffs

The chef that came up on Wil’s randomizer was Duff Goldman.  Unfortunately, Duff’s recipe list was pretty limited, so this week he decided that we needed to do a baking challenge.  He has challenged us to bake something we’ve never baked before.  This was going to be a challenge for me mainly because I bake quite a lot, so it’s not that easy for me to find something I’ve never baked before.  I decided to really stretch myself.  I’ve always loved cream puffs and eclairs, but I’ve never attempted to make my own.  They just seemed a little too difficult.  So I decided this was the perfect week to try it.

Wil mentioned that he had tried some Bailey’s Irish cream puffs, and since Bailey’s Irish cream is one of my favorite flavors I definitely wanted to try them.  I did a quick Google search and found a recipe.  The pastry itself intimidated me a little because the method just seems so foreign to me.  I couldn’t think of any possible way that boiling water and butter combined with flour and then beaten with eggs could create crispy, light bites of yum.  The filling was super simple to whip together and tasted amazing just on its own.

I boiled the water for the pastry and added in the stick of butter that I had cut into pieces.  Then once that came back to a boil, I dumped in the flour and stirred my heart out.  It almost immediately came together into a ball, but I let it go just a bit longer to make sure that it was right.  That was interesting, because I don’t know exactly what is right or what it should look like.  Anyway, I took it off the stove and let it cool just long enough to crack my 4 eggs into a measuring cup so that I could pour them into the dough one by one as I held the electric mixer with the other hand.  Once I had all the eggs cracked, I turned on the mixer in the dough and added the first egg.  I panicked a little because the dough suddenly got a little grainy, but I persevered.  After I had all four eggs incorporated, the dough was smooth and VERY thick.

At this point I was extremely skeptical.  I’ve seen a few chefs on tv make a pate a choux before, so I knew that what I had looked close to right, but I still could not believe that what I had just made was going to bake into a light pastry.  I decided that instead of trying to drop the dough from a tablespoon as the recipe called for, I wanted to try piping it on to my baking sheet, but I don’t own a piping bag or tips.  So I just snipped off the corner of a plastic freezer bag and did it that way.  I did a few eclair shapes and a few rounds… the eclair shapes weren’t always intentional… piping is hard, ok??

I stuck the pan in the oven and set the timer.

As I sat watching tv waiting for the timer to go off, I started to smell something coming from the kitchen.  It wasn’t quite a “something’s burning” smell, but it also wasn’t terribly pleasant… it was just weird.  When the timer went off, I went to the oven expecting to find blackened pieces of flat dough on my baking sheet.  What I found instead were actual real live cream puff and eclair looking pieces of pastry!!  SCORE!  I practically screamed for Wil, “Oh my God, William!!!  Come look!”  He raced into the kitchen expecting to find me dead on the floor or something horrible, I’m sure.  “Look!”  He glanced into the oven and said, “Oh my God those look good!”

At this point, I was feeling pretty damned proud of myself.  I hadn’t just wasted an hour of my time making something that completely failed.  Once the pastries were completely done, I pulled them out of the oven and split them open to add the filling.  Once they were all filled I dusted them all with powdered sugar.  Then we tasted.  They are simply delicious.  Light and airy and crisp.  They’re even better the next day!!  I’ve already made plans to make them again with a different filling.  I’m also considering playing with savory fillings.  I’m glad I tried something that had previously intimidated me.  It definitely paid off!!

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