Durian Choux-nuts

by ryanllee
durian choux-nuts

Durian, or the king of fruits, is widely beloved throughout South East Asia for its creamy texture and incredibly sweet flavor. This fruit has a spiky, hard, slightly green exterior encasing the much beloved bright yellow fruit in the interior. In fact, this fruit is so beloved that one was even sold for up to $48,000!


Despite all the fan fare surrounding this fruit, it’s still pretty infamous, mainly due to it’s pungent odor. There’s been multiple headlines in the news of people having to evacuate entire buildings just because one was brought in and it smelled like a gas leak. It’s even banned from some metro stations just for being too smelly to handle.

durian choux-nuts
durian choux-nuts

I grew up eating durian in my household so I’ve learned to love it over the years. I wanted to create something that perfectly utilized the durian’s creamy texture and sweet flavor, while also somewhat masking it’s pungent odor to make this fruit more accessible. In the end, I decided to mix it into some pastry cream and stuff some cream puffs with it.

I made these cream puffs donut shaped just to make them a bit more fun to eat, but you could easily just pipe them out into mounds since that’s quicker and easier to make. I top them off with a green craqueline topping to try to mimic the natural look of a durian with its slightly green, jagged exterior 🙂

durian choux-nuts

Durian Choux-nuts

FacebookTweetPin Durian, or the king of fruits, is widely beloved throughout South East Asia for its creamy texture and incredibly sweet flavor.… Recipes Durian Choux-nuts European Print This
Prep Time: Cooking Time:
Nutrition facts: 200 calories 20 grams fat
Rating: 5.0/5
( 1 voted )

Ingredients

Durian Pastry Cream

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1/4 cup durian puree or 1/4 tsp durian extract
  • pinch of salt

Craqueline Topping

  • 3 tablespoons softened butter
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 6 tablespoons all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon pandan extract
  • pinch of salt

Choux Pastry

  • 1 cup water
  • 1 stick unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cups and 2 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • pinch of salt

Instructions

Durian Pastry Cream

  1. Pour the sugar, cornstarch, and salt into a medium sauce pot and whisk together
  2. Pour the milk, durian extract (or durian puree), and egg yolks into a bowl and whisk until all combined
  3. Add this liquid mixture to the sauce pot slowly and whisk together
  4. Put in chunks of the cubed butter into the sauce pot
  5. Turn on to medium heat and bring to a boil all the while whisking (it's important to keep whisking the mixture as it firms up so none of it sticks to the bottom of the sauce pot)
  6. Transfer the pastry cream to a separate container (optional: first strain it through a mesh sieve to ensure the cream has a really smooth consistency)
  7. Cover the pastry cream with plastic wrap, ensuring that the plastic wrap touches the top of the pastry cream to discourage the formation of a skin on top of it
  8. Place in refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours before using

Craqueline

  1. Soften the butter and ensure it is nice and fluffy
  2. Mix in the pandan extract into the softened butter mixture
  3. Add in the all purpose flour, brown sugar, and salt into the butter and mix together until thoroughly combined
  4. Place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and flatten until the dough reaches about 1/4 inch thickness
  5. Freeze the dough until ready for use

Choux Pastry

  1. Pour the water, sugar, salt, and butter into a sauce pot and heat over medium heat
  2. Stir the mixture together until the water is boiling and the butter is melted
  3. Remove the sauce pot from the stove at this point and dump in all the flour in one go
  4. Vigorously mix the flour into the butter/water mixture so that all the water is absorbed
  5. Once the dough is formed, return the sauce pot to heat and continue to mix and cook down the dough until it pulls away from the sides of the pot and you're able to stick a spoon into it and have it stand straight up (about 2-5 minutes)
  6. Transfer the dough to a bowl and let it cool down for a couple minutes
  7. Crack in the eggs one at a time, ensuring the previous egg is fully incorporated into the dough before adding in the next egg
  8. Transfer the dough into a piping bag (or a ziplock bag with a small hole cut at the corner)

Assembly

  1. Preheat the oven to 375F and line a baking tray with parchment paper
  2. Remove the craqueline topping from the freezer and cut out disks using a donut cutter (if the craqueline cracks, just wait a bit for it to warm up and then push the cracked parts back together)
  3. Pipe out the choux pastry onto the prepared baking tray, in the same shape and thickness of the donut cutter, and top each mound with a craqueline disk
  4. (optional: spray the baking tray with water to help encourage the choux to puff up properly)
  5. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes depending on the size of the choux mounds
  6. DO NOT open the oven for the first 25 minutes of the baking process of the steam will release and the choux won't puff up properly
  7. After about 25 minutes, open the oven and prick each choux with a toothpick and then return to the oven to cook for another 5-10 minutes depending on the choux size (this helps to dry out the insides to maintain a firm choux)
  8. Remove from oven once the choux is nice and golden brown and prick each choux again with a toothpick to allow them to dry out even further while they rest
  9. Remove the pastry cream from the fridge and line a piping bag (or ziplock bag) with it
  10. Cut a little hole from the bottom of each choux pastry and fill the cream puffs with the durian pastry cream


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