Strawberry Jalapeño Cornmeal Cream Puffs

So, along with the Pretzel Dogs, I wished to use the jalapeño & cheese #ImprovCookingChallenge ingredients in a dessert. The past few weeks I've seen quite a few recipes featuring strawberries with cornmeal -- shortcakes, muffins, waffles... I wanted to make something gluten free, of course, but desired it a little "fancier" than cornbread. I looked for cornmeal pâte à choux, but consensus seemed to deem that ingredient as too heavy for puffs. I decided to use my successful gf profiteroles recipe from December and just sub in a little cornmeal. IT WORKED! THEY PUFFED!

The texture was what I wanted. Plus, they tasted of cornmeal!

Cornmeal Pâte à choux

1 c. water
½ c. butter (if using unsalted, add a pinch of kosher salt)
¾ c. Bob’s Red Mill® Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour 

¼ c. yellow cornmeal

4 large eggs

(It’s easier to assemble ingredients before starting, because the process goes fast!) Break the eggs into a spouted measuring cup. Preheat oven to 425°. Whisk the flour & cornmeal together. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
Combine the water & butter in a saucepan; bring to a rolling boil.
Remove from heat and add the flour mixture all at once, stirring vigorously.
Transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer, and beat for a couple minutes until it’s cooled to below 125°F.
Beat in the eggs one at a time on medium speed; scrape the bowl after each addition.
After the last egg, beat the dough a couple minutes until it holds a peak.
Scoop about a 2 tablespoon-size portion of batter onto the prepared baking sheets for each puff. (Allow space for the puffs to expand.) This made 12 puffs for me. 
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350°. Bake for an additional 20 to 25 minutes, until the dough has risen and the pastries are a medium golden brown. (They should sound hollow if you tap them…) Remove the pastries from the oven, make a small slit in the top of each, and return them to the oven for another 5 minutes, to allow the steam to escape.
Transfer the puffs to a rack to cool.
Split each one in half & fill the bottom with a scoop of the jalapeño strawberry mixture then replace the tops. 
Serve immediately!

Now, about that filling:
It actually evolved from what I'd planned, but happened to turn out ever so much better than I thought it would.

First of all I candied fresh jalapeño slices in a piloncillo syrup.

I had found an interesting recipe for strawberry flan from Spain that I adapted for my filling. But here's what I did instead:

• 1 lb. hulled fresh strawberries
• 1 piloncillo cone, chopped
• 1 c. half-and-half
• 4 oz. caramel sirup (see Joy of Cooking pic)
• 6 Eggs
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• finely chopped candied jalapeños, to taste
• 2 T. tequila

(recipe from 1946 Joy of Cooking)

Add first 5 ingredients to blender & chop until smooth.

Pour into sauce pan & cook on medium to 180° (as if you were cooking a custard, so stir frequently...) Cover & chill.

Beat cream cheese & candied jalapeños until creamy. Add a shot of tequila & beat some more. Combine chilled strawberry mixture & beat again. Pour into freezer-safe container & freeze until firm. Scoop & enjoy!

(SOMEBODY has to eat the melty leftovers...)

(Enjoy responsibly! BTW - you don't have to add the tequila, but it just makes the flavor soooooooo much better.)

As always, check out the links to jalapeño & cheese recipes by my friends:

An InLinkz Link-up

Cookies & (Irish)Cream Pie

Featuring Oreo® Baileys® Butter & Oreo® Toffee...

I truly cannot take credit for this idea. You know how when kids start carrying-on at the table & stuff just begins to snowball? Such was the case here -- I simply asked my fellas what comes to mind for cookies & cream. One said "Irish Cream?" and then it was all downhill after that.

We started by making the butter. Since we needed a full cup we tossed 2 Oreo® sleeves into the blender and used a little help from Baileys® to create this magical spread.

Next we needed to make the toffee.

(I got this idea while perusing candy recipes, but actually used a 1946 "Joy of Cooking" for the toffee recipe.)

Here we used another 35 cookies for the base, plus maybe a half-dozen more broken up to fill in the holes... (I did melt a cup and a half of semi-sweet chocolate chips to spread over the cooling candy, but next time I'll just leave it with cookies & toffee.)

So, here's the complete dessert recipe:

Didn't hear one complaint from the fellas...

(of course, their mouths were too full of cookies & cream to speak...)

I, however, was saying "Oh, oh, ohhhhhhhhhhh!"

For more information on our monthly Improv Challenge hosted by Nichole, you can visit her blog or our group's facebook page. 

And now, here are some cookies & cream recipes by fellow participants:

An InLinkz Link-up

Lemon Rosemary Sweet Potato Chips (done 2 ways)

January's Improv Cooking Challenge theme is Lemons & Rosemary. (Sure wish my lemon tree hadn't bitten the dust last year; but glad my rosemary topiary is still going strong!) We use both ingredients quite a bit when we grill. Especially love chicken & salmon with a touch of rosemary!

But I decided to go a different direction, probably influenced by the Christmas gift from the hubs which was a KitchenAid® Spiralizer! We sliced up a huge sweet potato (from my brother's garden -- thank you Mark!) using this handy gadget.

(kinda sorry to lose sweet potato to the core...)

this is how it looks right off the Spiralizer

you have to cut through the coil to make slices

Nothing smells better than sweet potatoes frying in some oil!

aren't they beautiful?

I'd made Lemon Rosemary & Garlic Sea Salt which we sprinkled over the fried sweet potato slices.

You can make the salt and store it for a long time,

simple ingredients

chopped so fine

dried in the oven

break up the chunky parts

We took the other half of the slices and tossed them in a lemon-rosemary sort of marinade.

We then dehydrated them according to our machine's directions.

I loved that I could taste the olive oil with the lemon & rosemary on the chips, but we were all disappointed in the texture.

Perhaps a finer slice would've worked better in our dehydrator. Anyhow. we've plenty of the dried chips leftover in a bowl; while the fried chips barely had time to cool & be salted...

If you're interested seeing the KitchenAid® Spiralizer Attachment in action, here's facebook live video we shot while making "zoodles" a couple weeks ago:

Pretty sure if you follow any of the links below from my friends you'll find plenty more delicious recipes using lemons & rosemary:

An InLinkz Link-up

GF Lucky Jack® Wacky Cake

Well, here we are – 2nd day of #Choctoberfest and I promised you a simple cake. (Oh, by the way, did you enter that Rafflecopter to win prizes from our sponsors? You can find it here.)

Wacky Cake was developed during the Depression when often you couldn’t afford to use eggs or milk in your desserts. I’m always amazed at how deliciously moist this cake can be – and even more so because I made this one with gluten-free flour!Also impressive is the fact that you don’t dirty any extra utensils. I just used an 8x8 glass dish & a fork (aside from measuring cups & spoons, that is…)

You’ll need to pre-heat your oven to 350°. Into the dish (don’t even need to grease it!) you’re going to measure:

• 1 & 1/2 c. gf flour blend (I used  Bob’s Red Mill^® Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour)
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. baking cocoa
• 1/2 t. Kosher salt
• 1 t. baking soda

You could sift this all together, but I just dumped it in & mixed carefully (that dish might not be as deep as you think…) with a dinner fork. After it’s thoroughly blended, you’ll need to make three holes, or “wells,” in the powder.

Into the first you will put 1 t. Kahlúa (mine is home-made, leftover from Christmas gifts…) and in the second you’ll pour 1/3 c. coconut oil (melted) and 1 T. vinegar goes in the last. (Don’t be surprised if that one fizzes a bit with the presence of the soda.) Lastly, you will pour one cup of Lucky Jack^® Double Black over all the ingredients. (Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’ll just have to drink the remaining 2 oz.)

Carefully stir until everything is completely combined. Pop it in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a pick comes out clean. Let cool.(mine cracked a bit… No worries! We’ll soon cover that up!)

While your cake is baking, measure out 2 T. whipping cream and dissolve 1 t. instant coffee crystals. After the cake has cooled, pour 2 c. cold whipping cream, 3 T. honey and the dissolved instant coffee into the Blendtec (or food processor, or mixer, or metal bowl with French whisk…)Seriously, 5 or 6 seconds on “high” gave me luscious Honey Java Whipped Cream. (Please ignore that finger-swipe strange crease, I have no idea how it got in there!)Toss a dollop on a slice of cake and you’re ready for a tea coffee party!

Check out all of today’s #Choctoberfest recipe links below:

An InLinkz Link-up

Strawberry “Cashtella” Galette

For my very first #Choctoberfest post I decided to incorporate my new-found favorite “health” food – CASHEW BUTTER. It was but one short month ago I blended up my very first batch…

Since Nutella^® is made with ground hazelnuts, I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to recreate it with ground cashews… In order to save time, I ground my cashew butter at the store, but their machine didn’t get it anywhere near as smooth as the Blendtec^®. That means the final product was much granier than intended, but none of my test subjects minded, at all !

 

Needing to make a dent in my 25# bag of Bob’s Red Mill^® Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour , I decided to try my hand at a gluten-free pie crust.

If you wish for a sweeter crust (the filling was sweet enough for us!) you can add one tablespoon sugar. You could also do an egg wash prior to baking, but I knew that this flour mixture would brown nicely on its own at this temperature.

After the dough chilled for about an hour, I rolled it out on parchment paper. I spread about a cup of “Cashtella” around the center (make it as thick or thin as you desire) then added a cup of strawberry jam on top of that.(Tried to) gently fold up the edges of the pastry and baked in a preheated 350° oven for about 20 minutes.

The crust was amazingly flaky (as far as gf items go…)Unfortunately, when it came time to serve our galette, “all” I could find to top it was Chocolate Fudge Ribbon ice cream…

 

Come back by tomorrow because I’ve made you a chocolate cake with very little effort, but GIGANTIC flavor! And be sure to enter the sponsors’ giveaway. In the meantime, you should probably check out the recipes in the #Choctoberfest linky down there ↓

An InLinkz Link-up