Chocolate Cream Puffs with Mascarpone Filling

WordPress is telling me this is my 160th post!!  What??  I find it just crazy that I have baked that many things with you all.  What a great adventure it has been, and continues to be!  I just love it!

This recipe was met with plenty of excitement from my tasters.  They just knew they would love them…and they did!  What I loved about them, was how indulgent and fancy they looked…and yet they weren’t really that hard to make.   These would make a fantastic addition to any gathering.

Definitely a keeper 🙂

 

Gâteau Basque Fantasie

Just a little background I learned about this recipe.  If something isn’t made following  strict, French culinary rules, it might be called “Fantasie”.  A traditional Gâteau Basque is made of a sweet crust fitted into a cake pan and filled with pastry cream or jam and then topped with another layer of crust.  It is hard not to call it a pie or tourte, but it is called a gâteau because of its classic cake look. (I think mine looks more like a tart because it was too difficult to fold the sticky dough over and behind the bottom crust.  I just placed it on top of the bottom edge and pressed down to seal it up.)

Instead of the classic pastry cream or jam filling we were creating one with fruit…therefore getting the “Fantasia” attached to the name.   We were to use orange juice, apples, grapes, raisins, and nuts…or any version of that with what you had on hand. You simmer the fruit down in sugar water until there is almost no more liquid.  Pretty easy.

The crust I will say was easy to make, but very fussy to work with.  I didn’t enjoy the process much.  You roll it out, chill or freeze it and then try and mold it into a pan….without it cracking…or before it is too soft.  Good luck with that.  It was not easy and I had to mend a few tears.  If you wait too long, it is too sticky and you can’t remove it from the parchment.  I had to re-roll one of my crusts and then re-chill it slightly to get the right firmness.  I think in the end the cracking doesn’t matter because it will all bake nicely together, but during the making, it seems rather important to have it look nice.

This one had mixed reviews from my tasters: three did not like it….two really liked it…and one said it was good but would be really good if it was just an apple filling.

Isn’t it strange how different taste can be?  I mean it is quite fascinating how people can all try the same dessert and have such different reactions.  Personally, I don’t see me making this one again…it wasn’t loved by all and that dough was just not that easy to work with.  Still so fun though!

Happy Baking!