Pumpkin Cream Puffs

Cream Puffs. What does that mean to you? Sounds a bit girly to me. 

But, for some reason I wanted to make them. And since its the season, of course I needed to incorporate my love for pumpkin. 

These are super easy too. Not too many ingredients. There's just a few things that you want to make sure to do if you choose to make these, and I'll walk you through that. 

Here's the recipe for the cream puffs (or profiteroles) that I used. 

Gather your ingredients to make your choux pastry dough: 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 stick of butter, pinch of salt, 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, 2 eggs. Can also add some sugar if you'd like. 

Preheat oven to 425F. In a medium saucepan, combine water, butter and salt.

I also added a stick of cinnamon to infuse some flavor, but that's just because I had it. 

Allow ingredients to come to a ROLLING BOIL. This is key. Not just a few bubbles. Remove cinnamon stick. Then immediately reduce heat to simmer and add all the flour at once.

Immediately start stirring ingredients rapidly with a wooden spoon. Not sure why, but they insist on wooden. 

Mixture should become a ball and look slightly sweaty. Kinda like you see here!

Transfer mixture to a mixing bowl and let it cool for 3-4 minutes. Doesn't have to be cold, you just don't want it to cook the eggs. Using electric mixer (or if you have a strong arm and want to use that wooden spoon again) beat the eggs 1 at a time. DO NOT add second egg until the first one is fully incorporated. Can add cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice at this time. Make sure eggs are fully incorporated, but don't over beat. Should look like my picture. :)

Using a pastry bag (or zip lock bag like me) fill with dough. Pipe 1 inch balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. When you're done, dip finger in water and smooth the top of of each ball lightly. This will give them a pretty shape! Make sure oven is FULLY HEATED and bake for 20-25 minutes. Try and rotate baking sheet half way through baking (10-12 min in). 

Your puffs should puff!

Beautiful!! These look a little brown because of the pumpkin spices.

While puffs are cooling, gather your ingredients for your pumpkin cream filling: 1 cup of whipping cream, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, 1 cup (or so depending on your taste) of canned pumpkin. (I'll show you later what to do with any leftover pumpkin puree) :)

In a large mixing bowl beat whipping cream, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice with electric mixer on medium until soft peaks form. 

I don't know about you, but I never get soft peaks. Mine will start to get a bit firm then I'll throw it in the fridge for 30 min or so and that seems to help it harden some more. 

Fold in canned pumpkin. Cover and chill (allow it to firm up a bit like I mentioned above). Chill until ready to serve.

When ready to serve, make a quick caramel sauce (1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tbls cornstarch, 1/3 cup of light cream (whatever you have on hand), 1/4 cup water, 1/2 tsp vanilla, combine in small saucepan over medium heat until it thickens)

Pipe cream into cream puffs, or you can just cut them in half and spoon cream mixture in. Either way it tastes yummy!  Then pour warm caramel over top.

Dust some powdered sugar and some additional pumpkin pie spice on top. Serves approx. 4 people

YUM!!