Thankful for cream puffs

I completely forgot about posting this.  I made a TON of cream puffs for Thanksgiving over 2 weeks ago.  I guess it was glossed over since it’s been crazy @ work and the photos are forgettable and this wasn’t a big deal; I’ve made these before.  Ain’t nothin’ special.

I was on a puff-making spree the morning of Vin’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner and made hundreds of little puffs.  I just kept going and going and all my racks were overfilling and I lost count after 250.  I made this many with the intention of bringing some for the T house dessert, then bringing them for my family’s post-turkey dinner on Saturday, and then doling out the rest to coworkers.

Pistachio puffs

I made pistachio filling for the T house puffs.  No, pistachio filling is not naturally green; a bit of food coloring gives it that lovely processed pastel shade.  And there were bits of nuts in there, too.  I also made chocolate filling and vanilla filling, but as usual, Vin likes to get to his parents’ house early so I didn’t have time to change tips and refill pastry bags to do multiple flavors.  I REALLY wanted to construct a tower of puffs (croquembouche), but there definitely wasn’t any time for that.  Meh.

TONS o' puffs

I brought about 60-70 puffs to the T house and brought along my nice cake stands to assemble them, but I was preoccupied with our new little niece for a few hours. She was so cute and peaceful sleeping on me that I didn’t want to move and wake her up to arrange cream puffs and hold her @ the same time, so Vin’s mom set them all up on one platter.  There were extra puffs so Mom T froze them.  (I was told she took them out to eat 2 weeks after Thanksgiving and they held up well and were still good.)

For my parent’s house, I packaged the dry, baked puffs in a bag and didn’t fill them till we got to the house.  I didn’t want the puffs to be soggy.  And it was a much more relaxed setting so I just sat down @ the dining table and took my time filling the assortment of pistaschio, chocolate, and vanilla while my siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and my dad eyeballed the process and commented on the “messy ones that needed to be eaten right away.”  hahaha  It was a nice sampling dish… I think I made about 80 for my mom’s family feast and they were all gone by the time we left.

plate o' puffs - chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio

And I REALLY wanted to bring some for my coworkers and teammates since we were finishing up a big group project and this would have been a nice treat, but I just didn’t have time to make more filling before then.  So frustrating.  Now I have another 150+ empty, frozen puffs in my freezer, so maybe I can make a small caramel croquembouche tower for later.  In addition to the awesomely fun idea I have in mind for the Christmas…  stay tuned…

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