Well it’s that time of year again….Flood of Jazz! Our kids are in band and in our school Flood of Jazz is a big deal. They bring in a guest artist, have a theme, the HS Jazz band performs, the JH Jazz band preforms, our Jazz choir performs, then our HS Jazz band gets to come back IN COSTUME and play a number of pieces corresponding to the theme. Now in the middle (while the HS Jazz band is changing) they have an intermission and serve a small dessert with coffee/drinks. For the last 3-4 years I’ve been in charge of this, not only the planning but the baking, pricing (it’s included in the ticket but we try to keep it under a dollar per serving), and naming.
Last year we did a Moroccan Chocolate Orange swirl cake. This year I am doing a ‘Gourmande’ which is a fancy way of saying it’s a few mini desserts on a plate. I work hard to be able to find recipe’s I can make a Gluten Free option for as well. I have made Gluten Free Cream Puffs so this recipe was a WIN! Yes-they look like an eyeball because they are supposed to look like Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. This was paired with a Lemon Cheesecake Stacked Cookie for two mini desserts with springy picnic flavors.
Blueberry Mousse Cream Puffs
A light cream puff filled with a fluffy creamy blueberry mousse.
Ingredients
1 Cup Water
1/2 cup Butter (1 stick)
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp sea salt (or 1/8 tsp if you use table salt)
4.7 oz (or 1 cup) All Purpose Flour
4-5 large eggs at room temperature
Coating chocolate
Blueberry Mousse
1.5 Cups or 8 oz frozen Blueberries
1/3 cup granulated sugar
.25 oz envelope of unflavored gelatin
1.5 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
Choux
1) Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare a piping bag and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2) In sauce pan over medium heat start melting butter
3) Once butter is 3/4 melted, add 1 cup water and turn heat up to medium-high heat.
4) Add sugar and salt and bring to rolling boil.
5) Once at a boil, pull to the side and add flour. Stir well and you might need to ‘mush’ to break flour into the liquid mixture.
6) Turn heat down to low medium and put pot back on stove and continue stirring until a light skin is formed on the pot as you stir. There are lots of great video’s showing this process if you aren’t sure what this means.
7) Put mixture in mixer bowl and mix on low to release steam/cool down. Stop every so often and take the temperature-once temperature is under 140 °F.
8) Once it’s under that, add 1 egg and mix well (until no more egg traces are seen).
9) Continue adding 1 egg then mixing well until you have 4 eggs in. Once that 4th egg is mixed in stop mixed and test consistency. If you lift the beater and the mixture forms a “V” or a ‘beard’ as it comes off the beater you can move to the next step.
If it doesn’t-break the 5th egg into a bowl and beat-add approximately half of the egg, mix well and text consistency again. Here is a great video on making choux and it’s explained VERY well!
Pate au Choux Part One with Chef Woolum
10) Put Choux into a pastry bag fitted with tip of your choice (or just snipped off). Pipe Choux into cream puffs (again, the video above shows this well). I made 2 1/4″ circles because this is a main dessert.
11) Bake Choux at 375°F for 20-25 minutes until browned (it should be just past golden brown). If you pull them too early they won’t be fully baked and will fall.
12) Pull them off of the baking sheet and put onto a wire rack-I punctured a hole in the bottom because I had seen a tip that it helps release the steam so it doesn’t fall and helps dry out the inside.
Blueberry Mousse
13) Put the blueberries and granulated sugar into a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the blueberries are soft and slightly liquidy.
14) Pour into a food processor or blender and puree.
15) Strain puree through a sieve to remove solids and put in a glass bowl.
16) Sprinkle the gelatin over blueberry puree making sure most of the gelatin is touching the puree to get moistened. Let bloom for 5 minutes
17) Microwave for 20 seconds, whisk. Microwave for another 15 seconds and whisk till smooth. (if you have to put in for another 10 seconds or so feel free).
18) Let cool to room temperature. While cooling preapare whipped cream.
19) In mixing bowl whisk whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla to stiff peaks.
20) Once blueberry mixture is a room temperature, fold blueberries into whipped cream.
Assembly
21) Pipe blueberry mixture into center of cream puff. I used a cream piping nozzle but you could also cut the top off and fill the cream puff that way as well.
22) Melt coating chocolate (I used candy melts but you could easily use chocolate chips or melted chocolate or sprinkle with powdered sugar). (My goal was to make it look like Mike Wazowski from Monster’s Inc.)
Redheaded baker 