Cream Puff Pastry

Although their names are similar, cream puff paste and puff pastry are totally different from one another. Two steps are required to make cream puff paste. The first involves cooking the ingredients to partially swell the flour’s starch, hasten some gluten development and distribute the fat throughout the paste. Cooking the flour forms a thick, smooth, glossy emulsion; without cooking, it would remain a sticky mass incapable of puffing in the oven. The second step involves adding the eggs to stabilize the stiff mixture. Eggs are the paste’s main source of leavening and moisture, so they should not be added when the mixture is too hot or too cold.