Rose Water Pistachio Cream Puffs

This is an lovely, exotic and not-too-difficult pastry from Iran.

Ingredients #

Instructions #

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly grease the paper with butter.

In a small bowl, mix the flour, salt and sugar. In another small bowl, beat 1 egg with a tablespoon of water for the egg wash.

Toast the pistachios and cool fully. Grind them to coarse crumbs in a mortar and pestle.

In a saucepan over low heat, bring the water to a boil with the butter. As soon as the water mixture begins to boil, take the saucepan off the heat and add the dry ingredients all at once and beat vigorously for 1 minute. Put the saucepan back on the heat and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for at least 2 minutes or until the batter begins to film the bottom of the pan. The objective here is to cook out some of the water so the batter will be able to absorb the eggs.

Remove from the heat and leave the mixture to cool a few minutes. Mix in the beaten eggs a bit at a time until the dough is smooth, glossy and fairly stiff. This should take around 3-4 minutes.

Spoon tablespoons of the dough onto the baking tray until all the dough is used — you should have 12 roughly equally-sized balls. Use a pastry brush to smooth the tops of the puffs with the egg wash. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, and then reduce the oven to 325 F and bake for another 10-15 minutes. The buns must be puffed and golden-brown down their sides. If the buns aren’t done enough, the moist interior will cause them to collapse when they cool.

While they bake, whip the cream, sugar and rose water together just until stiff peaks form. Cover and chill.

Remove one bun from the oven and cut into it to see if it is cooked all the way through. When they’re done, remove them all from the oven, pierce the tops with a paring knife to release steam, and place them on a wire rack to cool completely.

Just before serving, reserve 1 tbsp of the pistachios and fold the rest into the the whipped cream. Place the cream in a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Make a small incision in the side or bottom of each bun with a paring knife, and insert the star tip into that incision to fill each bun with cream until it swells. Dust the puffs lightly with confectioners sugar and sprinkle with the reserved pistachios. Serve immediately.