cream puffs with sweetened whipped cream

i pour the entire bowl of flour and i did not see the dough i was expecting to form. i whisked, whisked and whisked to try to see if it will change. nothing. i whisked some more, and still nothing. i turned on the garbage disposal and poured the batter into the sink. i tried again, heated up the water, added the sugar, sprinkled the salt and waited for the butter to melt and then poured the flour. once again, nothing. with almost 2 sticks of butter wasted, i had to sit down and think what i did wrong.
i looked at a couple of websites and reflected on what i have done. i backtracked and knew without a doubt that i followed each recipe to the letter. so i looked at other recipes and found one crucial step missing on both of the previous recipes i looked at - letting the water and butter mixture boil. i guess i should've looked for more rather than relying on the two i first went to, i guess that's what i got for not doing research.
distraught from the loss of 12 tablespoons of butter, i read up some more recipes and watched a couple of videos on youtube, and the need to bring the water and butter mixture to a boil was confirmed. i gathered myself, wiped the tears and started again. this time around i was well-prepared.
with the water mixture boiling, the bowl of flour on one hand, a wooden spoon on the other, and my toes crossed for luck, i warily poured the flour into the pot... and then it happened - the dough formed. i stirred and stirred until everything was combined and pulling away from the sides of the pot, and the fear that this mixture would somewhat break and turn into a liquid batter disappeared.
if you haven't figured out yet, i had a lot of trouble making this recipe. i was stressing out because i couldn't figure out what i did wrong, but all that trouble was well worth it because the results were really, really good. i was thinking of making chouquettes, but i did not have pearl sugar, so i couldn't really call this chouquette.

so, if you are looking for a quick dessert to serve people who just crashed your house without prior notice, this is one of those things you could whip up really quick and feed them b*tches. also, most of the things you need for this recipe could be found in your fridge and pantry.

cream puffs with sweetened whipped cream

ingredients:

1 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs, room temperature
large grain sugar (raw or demerara sugar)
1 egg + 1tbsp water beaten for egg wash

instructions:

1. preheat oven to 425 degrees F

2. in a medium sized pot, put water, salt, sugar and butter and bring to a boil.

3. once boiling, remove from heat, pour flour into the pot and stir with a wooden spoon until everything is combines and the dough pulls out from the sides of the pot.

4. let it cool for about 5 minutes and add the eggs one at a time, stir like crazy until all the eggs are combined and the dough is smooth.

5. using a piping bag or two spoons, place mounds of dough the size of a quarter in a parchment-lined baking sheet, brush the tops with prepared egg wash, sprinkle each mound with raw/demerara sugar and bake for 35 minutes, or until browned and puffy.

6. poke the sides of each puff with a small knife and bake for another 5 minutes. this will let the steam out from the inside of the cream puffs and dry out the insides. take out of the oven and let it cool.

7. once cooled, slice each cream puff and fill with sweetened whipped cream (recipe follows) (or raspberry italian buttercream, if you have time).

***note: when you open the cream puffs and find some moist dough inside, just scoop it out with a spoon to prevent your cream puffs from being soggy. also, you could freeze the filled cream puffs and serve it frozen. it's super good either way.

sweetened whipped cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream, cold
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

in a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and whip like crazy (manually with a whisk or with a hand mixer/stand mixer with a whisk attachment) until stiff peaks form, don't over whip because you'll end up with butter. you know how whipped cream looks like, so if it looks like whipped cream and feels like whipped cream, stop and resist the urge from whipping some more because you'll end up with buttah!