This recipe for Raspberry Cream Puffs comes from the site Julie Marie Eats, which has amazing, beautiful sweets and pastries. I decided to try this recipe because it is so pretty, and also I knew it would be a challenge for me because it involves tempering chocolate and using a difficult mold, as well as making a marshmallow meringue filling for the inside of the puffs.
This recipe used Valrhona Raspberry Inspirations chocolate. I had never used the product before and was amazed at the deep raspberry flavor. My family immediately asked for more just to eat. 🙂 I used this mold, called a Russian Tale mold, for these. You could use any mold you like though.
Raspberry Cream Puffs:
- 1 lb bag of Valrhona Raspberry Inspirations chocolate
- 85 grams granulated sugar
- 40 grams glucose syrup (you can buy here on amazon)
- 25 grams of water
- 50 grams cold egg whites
- 10 grams granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp crushed freeze dried raspberries
- 100 grams marzipan
- 1 tsp freeze dried raspberries
Chocolate Shells:
For a bit more detailed discussion on how to temper chocolate, see my post on tempering. Temper the chocolate by first melting it over a double boiler, reserving 1/4 of the chocolate pieces to add later. Remove from the heat and begin adding small amounts of reserved chocolate and stirring until it is melted. Checking your chocolate temp after each addition. Keep adding and stirring until the temp reaches 79-81 degrees (this differs for milk, dark and white chocolate). Once you’ve reached that temp, put it back over your turned off pan of warm water for just a few seconds at time and bring the temp back to 82-84. You need very little heat to do this, so be careful. Once you are at 82-84 you are ready, but the chocolate needs to stay this temp so work quickly.
Pour the chocolate into the mold, and rotate it around to be sure that the chocolate coats every bit of the inside. This is a bit tricky with this mold, and I had to rotate it quite a bit to get it all covered. Flip the mold over onto a cooling rack with a sheet pan lined with parchment under it. See more in my tempering post about set up. You want to catch any drips so you can keep and reuse the rest of the chocolate. You will need it to seal the bottoms of the molds after you add the fillings. After 5 minutes, turn the mold over and use a bench scraper to clean the excess chocolate off the mold. Place it aside to let the chocolate set up.
Raspberry Marshmallow Fluff:
In a small pot start heating the glucose, water and sugar over medium heat. Keep your instant read thermometer nearby so you can watch the temp. While this is heating, put your egg whites into a clean mixer bowl with the whisk attachment set up. Begin whisking the egg whites on high. When they start to foam, add the 10 grams of sugar and continue whisking on high until they are medium/stiff peaks. At this point your sugar should be reaching 243 degrees. You need to watch the sugar temp while the eggs are going because you don’t want to go over 243. If your eggs are whisked but the sugar isn’t hot enough, turn the mixer to low and keep the eggs moving while you wait.
Slowly pour the sugar syrup in a steady stream between the side of the bowl and whisk while the mixer is going on high. Continue pouring until all the liquid is in. Keep mixing on high for 8-10 minutes and your meringue should cool down and become stiff and glossy. If the bowl is still warm, keep whisking a bit longer. You don’t want any heat left in it.
Add the vanilla and crushed raspberry powder and blend. Put the fluff into a piping bag. If your extra chocolate has hardened up (it likely has), place back onto the double boiler until just melted again and place into another piping bag.
Marzipan Base:
Combine your marzipan and crushed raspberry powder and knead until mixed. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut out circles small enough to fit inside the mold you are using. I used a small circular cookie cutter for this. Set aside.
Assemble, Freeze and Unmold:
To assemble the Raspberry Cream Puffs, pipe the marshmallow filling into the molds, leaving about 1/2 inch of headspace. Place a marzipan disc in each one. Use your piping bag of warm chocolate to cap off each puff. Place your mold into the freezer for 20-30 minutes to make it easier to unmold these. They are tricky because of the shape and freezing really helped get them out without damage. To unmold them, gently pull the opening of the mold to detach it from the puff and push from the top of the mold to start unmolding. This took me some time to work out and to get the hang of how to unmold them. I broke one, and broke the tip off a bunch, but overall they came out better than I had hoped they would!
Everyone agreed these have amazing raspberry flavor and we enjoyed these very much. I had fun doing this project and will try some of the other recipes on Julie Marie Eats too.
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