With all the flavor of a banana cream pie in a handy, convenient light pastry, the banana cream puff is the ultimate baked treat. Instead of spending a fortune on getting them from a bakery, why not consider making them yourself with this delicious recipe?
Rather than waiting for your bananas to ripen why not learn How to Ripen Bananas quickly? Not a fan of coffee, try this Chocolate Sauce as a drizzle for your cream puffs instead!
Banana Cream Puffs
Banana cream puffs are one of those things that you really only get at your favorite bakery. The best ones have a tender, flaky pastry and be filled with a luscious cream that actually tastes like real bananas and not just an awful chemical flavoring.
Really good ones can be super hard to find, however, so why not learn how to make your own?
Though it does have a few steps and a couple of specific ingredients, making your own banana cream puffs is one of those things that is absolutely worth the time and effort.
How To Prepare The Cream Puff Pastry Without Scorching It
One part of this recipe that many people might not be familiar with is the process of making choux pastry.
This involves mixing flour into hot water and butter, and stirring it rapidly while on the heat to both mixes in the flour thoroughly, as well as cook away that raw taste.
It can be a bit weird to add so much flour to a hot pan, especially so when trying to mix it carefully and ensure that everything is mixed just right.
The trick with making choux pastry is to stir it super quickly, and not worry about burning the flour. So long as you cook and stir quickly, using big, wide motions with your wooden spoon as you add the flour, then nothing should burn.
The moment you start to smell that tingly, burning smell, or see any black or darkening bits of flour, get the pan off of the heat and you should be fine.
Can You User Other Types Of Chocolate Chips?
This recipe calls for the use of some simple semi-sweet chocolate chips to help provide the chocolate base for the sauce.
This sauce is absolutely critical for your pastry; it doesn’t just add a chocolatey bit of sweetness to the top of the pastries but actually provides some really useful textural contrast as well.
However, while semi-sweet chocolate chips are undoubtedly the simplest and most regular flavor choice, you could always play around with the flavors as you like.
For example, if you like a darker, more intense flavor, why not go for some dark chocolate chips instead? Or, if you really like sweetness, go for some white chocolate chips instead.
Or totally do away with the idea of chocolate chips altogether and just reach for your favorite chocolate bar instead? As long as you chop it up decently fine, it will melt just as easily as chocolate chips.
How To Make Your Mocha Chocolate Sauce Without A Microwave
To make the mocha chocolate sauce, you need to evenly melt together all of the ingredients to produce a smooth, luscious sauce, and the easiest way to do this is in the microwave.
The microwave is not only super convenient, but it also produces a really even melting, so long as you are constantly stirring the bowl that you melt the ingredients in, and make sure not to cook it on too high a setting.
Not everyone has a microwave, however!
For those cursed without the handy dinging appliance on their kitchen counter, you could easily just melt your chocolate sauce ingredients on the stove top.
Just put everything into a small saucepan and put it on the lowest heat you can. As long as you are stirring it really frequently, you shouldn’t have too much trouble in getting everything evenly melted without scorching.
How Could You Make Differently Flavored Cream Puffs?
The banana cream puff is a classic when it comes to pastries. Rich, creamy, and decadent, it seems only natural to consider replacing the banana flavor with something else entirely different.
So could you instead get rid of the banana and substitute it for something else?
Well, while there are lots of ways to get other flavors in your cream puffs, the issue is that bananas in this recipe aren’t just for flavor, but also for texture and consistency.
If you just subbed the bananas for another fruit, you would likely find that your cream filling just wouldn’t taste or feel right.
Instead, you might consider replacing the cream filling entirely with something like jam instead. This lets you customize your flavors to whatever you like, from strawberry to cherry, without having to worry about ruining its texture.
You could still just use jam in place of the bananas and still use the rest of the ingredients, so long as you keep in mind that the cream filling will definitely have a bit of a grainier, slightly less smooth texture when you bite into them.
Looking for more delicious Dessert recipes? Try these out:
Happy Cooking!
Love,
Karlynn
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Banana Cream Puffs
Ingredients
Cream Puffs
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup butter or margarine
- 1 cup flour
- 4 eggs
Filling
- 5 egg yolks
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- dash salt
- ⅓ cup flour
- 1½ cups milk (2%)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 2 small ripe bananas (mashed well with a fork)
- ½ cup whipping cream
Mocha Chocolate Sauce
- ½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 3 Tablespoons whipping cream
- 2 Tablespoons hot water
- ½ teaspoon instant coffee granules
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°
- For the cream puffs – In a saucepan heat the water and butter until boiling, add the flour all at once and beat on medium heat for 2 minutes until very stiff. Remove from heat.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time until the dough is smooth and continue to beat until it is satinlike.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop 8 even mounds of dough onto the parchment paper.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove them from the oven and turn the oven off. Gently slice each puff horizontally slicing about the top 1/3 off so the top will be a bit smaller. Place them back on the baking pan and return to the warm oven for 5 more minutes to dry slightly. Remove and set aside.
Filling
- In a small deep bowl beat the egg yolks with the sugar and the pinch of salt until they are pale yellow. Beat in the flour and ½ cup milk.
- In a small pot add 1 cup of milk and bring to scalding, or just before it boils and add a little bit of the hot milk to the beaten egg mixture and whisk the egg mixture quickly. Add the egg mixture to the pot with the remaining milk and whisk to mix continuously, cooking until thick. Remove from heat.
- Add in the vanilla and butter stirring until the butter is melted. Chill until cool.
- Mash the bananas well with a fork and add into the chilled filling. In a medium size bowl whip the cream until firm and fold the banana filling into the whipped cream gently.
- Spoon the banana cream into the cream puffs and place the top back on.
Mocha Chocolate Sauce
- Add all the ingredients into a microwaveable measuring cup and microwave in 20 second intervals stirring until just melted. Do not overheat.
- Drizzle the chocolate sauce over the top of the cream puffs. Enjoy!
June says
Not impressed with end result. After baking 40 minutes at 375f the puffs were raw in the centre. Followed directions in the recipe precisely.