cream puffs

Tasty Tuesday–A Dessert 11 Years in the Making

This is a story about not giving up, at least not permanently. Taking a break for over a decade is a different matter, however!

I am no stranger to making cream puffs. As a matter of fact, we’ve made them in school with a recipe from The Little Women Cookbook, and I’ve made a special version for May the Fourth, too. A Pâte à Choux dough is just not that intimidating to me.

But there is one presentation of cream puffs that has eluded me since 2013…the Croquembouche. Back then, I wanted to make the fancy tower of cream puffs for Christmas dessert. But I couldn’t get it to hold together, so we had plain old cream puffs instead.

I’ve thought about this dessert off and on over the years, and I’ve thought about making it again many times, but the thought of failing at it again always put me off. I knew though, when Paris 2024 came around, I would have to give it a try, and this time, I was successful!

It took me a long time, but the point is, I didn’t give up, and we were rewarded with a delicious and fancy dessert!

Tasty Tuesday–The Christmas Feast

I almost forgot to share our fancy Christmas dinner! I didn’t have a theme this year…I just wanted to try something new. So, I chose a pork crown roast with pan sauce. I’ve been told that it was very good, even though I thought it was dry. We also had roasted carrots, parsnips, brussels sprouts, and potatoes, plus my “famous” stuffing and cranberries.

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For dessert, we had a rustic apple-pear pie with French vanilla ice cream, and cream puffs. We were supposed to have a croquembouche, but it kept falling down, so we “just” had the cream puffs, instead!

Next year, I might just make a rack of lamb!