KuKuKawaii: Totoro & turtle cream puffs

I finally made some Totoro Cream Puffs! They didn't turn out as pretty as Annathered's. If you'd like to try making these yummy cream puffs, please check out her "how-to" here.

At first, I had some doubts as to whether her cream custard microwave recipe would be any good since most recipes I've come across used the stove-top method. But I must say, the microwave method is so much easier and it turned out perfectly! Like Anna says, every microwave is different, so the cooking time may have to be adjusted. It turns out that I had to microwave mine at high for 2 minutes first and then for another 45 seconds after that.

I like that she gives out shorter cooking times for the beginner to play around with until they can get it right. I also like that her recipe makes very small batches. This way, if you goof up the first few times, at least you wouldn't be wasting a lot of ingredients.

Lucky for me and Derek, we got it almost right the first time. The only problem we had was that there were tiny holes on the bottom of our first batch of baked puff pastry. I figured it was because our batter might not be thick enough. So for the next 2 batches, we added less egg to the recipe and almost all the puff pastries turned out perfectly! Good job, Derek! I give credit to my sous chef for his wise suggestion.

For the fun part, we decorated them and filled them with the custard and ate them up right away. They were soooooooo yummy!!!!!

The true scientists that we are, we felt we had no choice but to make some more cream puffs, for testing purposes, you know ;). We wanted to test if day old cream puffs would taste just as good. After having our fill with the freshly made cream puffs, we were good enough to set aside some for storage in the fridge and freezer for testing later.

Of course, fresh out of the oven wins hands down. The cream puffs stored in the fridge still tasted quite good the next day, but the pastry lost its crispness. I'm sure the frozen cream puffs would have tasted divine, if we had only allowed to let it defrost for a good 15 minutes before wolfing them down. But, even though the custard was extremely hard, it still tasted soooooo good, that we ate it all up without waiting for it to fully defrost.

The verdict? It would be best to serve these cream puffs the same day. If you want to make them ahead, I'd suggest freezing them first and then allowing them to defrost slightly and serve as frozen treats. We will try some more experimenting with different flavours like red bean, green tea or chocolate cream custard. If successful, I will certainly blog about it again.

Puff pastries, fresh out of the oven.

Hmmmmm, some of these look like turtles.

My attempt at making these look like Totoros. Being naturally lazy, I took a short cut and used toothpicks to put on cream cheese icing eyeballs first. Then, I melted some chocolate chips and applied the nose and whiskers next. Once the eyeballs firmed up a bit, I dotted them with the melted chocolate for the pupils.